US08744836B2
According to one embodiment, a finite state transducer determinizing device includes a symbol determination unit, a state merging unit, and a single-value processing unit. The symbol determination unit generates an identification symbol different from an input symbol assigned to each transition of a finite state transducer. The state merging unit extracts one or more states at a transition destination by the same input symbol from among the states of the finite state transducer and generates states having the extracted states as sub-states. The single-value processing unit applies the input symbol assigned to each transition of the finite state transducer or the identification symbol as an input symbol of a transition between the states generated by the state merging unit to perform determinizing.
US08744826B2
A method of simulating the behavior of an articulated set of bone parts, in particular the vertebral column comprising a construction step of constructing a three-dimensional geometrical model from data that is specific to the subject in a reference position; and a mechanical customization step of determining the geometrical model by detailing at least some of the connection areas of the bone parts. The mechanical customization step includes a stage of customizing critical connection areas for the bone parts; a data acquisition stage of acquiring data concerning the articulated bone set of the subject during at least one clinical test of posture; and a characterization stage for characterizing the mechanical parameters of said junction areas in order to cause the model to reproduce the data acquired during the above-mentioned clinical test.
US08744825B2
Systems and methods for refining ALE elements in a time-marching simulation are disclosed. A FEA model representing a physical domain is defined and used in a time-marching simulation that simulates physical phenomena of the physical domain. Certain ones of the ALE elements are refined upon detecting a user-defined triggering condition. Each of said certain ones of the ALE elements is refined into a number of child elements. When an ALE element contains more than one material, volume fractions representing respective materials are calculated in each of the child elements right after each refinement. At each advection phase, each donor maps its flux to one or more receptors. When a donor maps its flux to multiple receptors, each receptor calculates its own share of the flux from the donor. When the donor contains more than one material, each receptor must account for such situation.
US08744824B2
An optimizing design method for a chassis structure of electronic equipment is disclosed, including: investigating from the point of view of mechanical, electric and thermal three-field coupling, determining the preliminary design size of the chassis, performing a mechanical analysis by using a mechanical analysis software such as ANSYS; converting the mesh model among the three-fields, obtaining the mesh model used for the electromagnetic and thermal analyses; setting the thermal analysis parameters, performing the thermal analysis by using an electromagnetic analysis software such as ICEPAK; determining a resonance frequency of the chassis and an electric parameter of the absorbing material, performing an electromagnetic analysis by using a thermal analysis software such as FEKO; correcting the analysis result by sample testing; determining whether the chassis satisfies the design requirement, if it satisfies the requirement, the optimizing design will be finished, otherwise, modifying the preliminary computer assisted design model, the electromagnetic analysis parameter and the thermal analysis parameter, repeating the above processes until the requirement is satisfied.
US08744817B2
A method of upscaling for reservoir simulation is disclosed, comprising: inverting a set of deep reading measurements constrained by upscaled multi-well data, and, in response to the inverting step, upscaling for reservoir simulation.
US08744814B2
The invention relates to an arrangement for protecting a component in a power supply circuit. The arrangement comprises determination of an electric quantity constituting a load on the component, which electric quantity constituting a load on the component is determined repeatedly while the component is exposed to the load. The arrangement also comprises estimation of instantaneous load capacity of the component, which estimation of instantaneous load capacity is performed using a limitation criterion set for the load capacity of the component. This limitation criterion indicates the longest possible operating time of the component under a given loading condition. For the limitation criterion, a representation with respect to the electric quantity constituting a load on the component is provided, and a limitation criterion corresponding to the defined electric quantity constituting a load on the component is derived repeatedly from the said representation while the component is exposed to the load. The estimate of instantaneous load capacity of the component is thus determined on the basis of both the limitation criterion defined substantially at the estimation instant and the limitation criteria defined before this.
US08744812B2
A hybrid computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach for modeling a bounded domain, such as a data center, is disclosed. The CFD modeling approach divides the bounded domain into one or more viscous regions and one or more inviscid regions, and then performs a viscous domain solve for the viscous region(s) using a computational fluid dynamics model with turbulence equations (i.e., a turbulence model), and performs inviscid domain solve for the inviscid region(s) using a set of inviscid equations (or potential flow equations). After solving for the different regions, results of the viscous domain solve and the inviscid domain solve are provided as a model of the bounded domain.
US08744809B2
An improved system for sensing includes a first signal source for producing an excitation signal for exciting a specimen having a nuclear quadrupole resonance, a signal sampling device for sampling a response signal received from the specimen to produce a plurality of samples, a data storage device for storing a plurality of data corresponding to said plurality of samples; and a processor for time coherently processing the plurality of data to sense the nuclear quadrupole resonance of said specimen. An optional second signal source for producing a probe signal directed at the specimen can also be used, where the response signal corresponds to the probe signal having reflected off the specimen.
US08744808B2
Embodiments described herein include a sensor electrode including a plurality of contacts positioned adjacent one another to form a pattern. Signal outputs are coupled to the plurality of contacts. A signal output is connected to each contact of the sensor electrode. One or more processors are coupled to the signal outputs. The processor separately processes each signal output of the plurality of signal outputs.
US08744807B2
In a framework for acquiring and analyzing data from a network of sensors, plug-in software interfaces are used to provide scalability and flexibility. Data collection set-up data is exchanged through one or more first plug-in software interfaces with data collection devices, to configure the processor to collect measurement data from the data collection devices. Analysis set-up data is exchanged through one or more second plug-in software interfaces with one or more data analysis software packages, to configure the processor to provide a predefined subset of the measurement data to the data analysis software packages and to accept analysis results from the data analysis software packages. Measurement data and analysis results are subsequently exchanged through the plug-in interfaces.
US08744801B2
An embodiment of the invention is directed to an electronic caliper which combines positioning and measurement in one unit without the use of hydraulics for subsea use. In certain embodiments, several attachments can be affixed to accommodate a range of measurement tasks. In a preferred embodiment, one jaw is adjustable and the other, or opposing, jaw is fixed, e.g. by bolting it on to a mounting structure. The jaws typically allow for the removal and replacement of other attachments. In another embodiment, the unit communicates to computer software for position control, precise indication and clamping for adjustment. In a preferred embodiment, computer software displays all feedback via laptop computer on surface. The caliper is maneuvered to a position proximate an object and used to measure a predetermined physical characteristic of the object. The measurement can be displayed, e.g. at the surface, using a computer with control software.
US08744797B2
A test system and a test method thereof. The test system includes an electronic device and a test device. The electronic device includes a plurality of output interfaces and provides a corresponding test signal via the output interfaces according to a group of operation commands. The test device includes a transforming unit, a multiplexer unit, a processor unit and a plurality of test interfaces which are respectively coupled to the output interfaces. The transforming unit transforms the test signals received via the test interfaces. The multiplexer unit selects the transformed test signals. The processor unit controls the multiplexer unit to select one of the transformed test signals, and determines whether the transformed test signal being selected conforms a predetermine condition for generating a test result signal. The processor unit controls the communication unit to transmit the test result signal to the electronic device according to the test result signal.
US08744793B2
A method and apparatus for dynamically adjusting the level of a response signal from an ultrasound transducer is disclosed. During a calibration phase, a description of a gain profile of a level adjuster is set dependent upon an expected response signal for a type of object to be tested and the description is stored in memory. During a measurement phase for an object under test, a description of a gain profile is selected for the type of the object under test and a gain profile is determined from the selected description. The response signal from the object under test is passed through a level adjuster and the level of the response signal is adjusted dynamically in accordance with the gain profile. The description of the gain profile is selected with reference to an expected response either by operator interaction with a user interface or automatically.
US08744777B2
The present invention concerns a method for the quantification of a target nucleic acid in a sample comprising the following steps: (i) determination of the amplification efficiency of the target nucleic acid under defined amplification conditions, (ii) amplification of the target nucleic acid contained in the sample under the same defined reaction conditions, (iii) measuring the amplification in real-time, (iv) quantification of the original amount of target nucleic acid in the sample by correction of the original amount derived from step (iii) with the aid of the determined amplification efficiency. The efficiency correction of PCR reactions according to the invention for the quantification of nucleic acids can be used for absolute quantification with the aid of an external or internal standard as well as for relative quantification compared to the expression of housekeeping genes.
US08744776B2
A biosensor system determines analyte concentration from an output signal generated from a light-identifiable species or a redox reaction of the analyte. The biosensor system adjusts a correlation for determining analyte concentrations from output signals or determined analyte concentrations with one or more complex index function extracted from the output signals or from other sources. The complex index functions determine at least one slope deviation value, ΔS, or normalized slope deviation from one or more error parameters. The slope-adjusted correlation between analyte concentrations and output signals may be used to determine analyte concentrations having improved accuracy and/or precision from output signals including components attributable to bias.
US08744775B2
The present invention relates to methods, apparatus, and imaging systems for using near-infrared spectroscopy imaging of plant embryos for classifying plant embryos. In one embodiment, a method is provided for classifying a plant embryo of an unknown type based on near infrared spectroscopy imaging.
US08744773B2
An intelligent rain sensor incorporates at least one hygroscopic member and a sensor that generates signals representative of its amount of expansion due to absorption of moisture. A microcontroller executes a pre-programmed algorithm that determines at least the rate of expansion and uses that information to distinguish between actual rainfall events on the one hand, and high humidity, dew or a light sprinkle on the other hand, and sends a shut off command to an irrigation controller.
US08744770B2
One embodiment of the invention is directed to a method including constructing a path-distance oracle that provides both an intermediate vertex of a shortest path between two vertices in a spatial network and an approximate distance between the two vertices. The constructing comprises decomposing the spatial network into a set of path-coherent pairs (PCPs) that satisfy at least one predefined property.
US08744769B1
Embodiments relate generally to devices and methods for analyzing trip information and providing suggestions and information to a user based on the analysis involving the head unit of a vehicle. Analysis may comprise creating a user profile based on activity of a user of the vehicle, wherein the user may be identified by connection with a mobile device associated with the user. The user profile may then be used to determine suggestions or warnings for a user based on current trip information. Analysis may also comprise receiving weather and/or traffic information corresponding to the trip information and determining suggestions or warning for a user based on the effects of the weather and/or traffic.
US08744766B2
Aspects of the present invention recommend a route. An indication of an origin and a destination is received. Data describing a plurality of navigation routes between the origin and the destination is received. A plurality of pollution score values corresponding to each of the plurality of navigation routes is determined. A cumulative score value is determined for each of the plurality of navigation routes. The data describing the plurality of navigation routes between the origin and the destination and the corresponding plurality of pollution score values and cumulative score values is transmitted.
US08744765B2
A personal navigation system, including: at least one inertial sensor module associated with a user, the inertial sensor module comprising at least one sensor to generate location data associated with the user; a communication device to receive and/or transmit at least a portion of the location data; and an onsite computer to communicate with the communication device and receive at least a portion of the location data; wherein at least one of the inertial sensor module and the onsite computer is configured to determine at least one activity of the user based at least in part upon the location data; wherein the onsite computer is programmed to configure a display including a representation of the user based at least in part upon the location data; wherein at least one of the determination and the configuration is performed substantially in real-time.
US08744758B2
An exemplary system includes a driving directions subsystem configured to provide data representative of driving directions to an access device communicatively coupled to the driving directions subsystem. The driving directions subsystem is further configured to provide at least one print tool including a plurality of selectable map views to the access device, the print tool enabling a user of the access device to select, from the selectable map views, at least one map view for inclusion in a printing of at least a subset of the driving directions. In certain embodiments, the driving directions include textual driving direction steps, and the driving direction subsystem is configured to scale a font size of at least a subset of the textual driving direction steps based on a number of the textual driving direction steps included in the driving directions.
US08744750B2
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to systems, methods, apparatuses, devices, articles, and means for updating radio models. For certain example implementations, a method for one or more server devices may comprise receiving at one or more communication interfaces at least one measurement that corresponds to a position of a first mobile device within an indoor environment. At least one radio model that is stored in one or more memories may be updated based, at least in part, on the at least one measurement to produce at least one updated radio model. The at least one radio model and the at least one updated radio model may correspond to the indoor environment. The at least one updated radio model may be transmitted to enable a second mobile device to use the at least one updated radio model for positioning within the indoor environment. Other example implementations are described herein.
US08744745B2
A system and method for monitoring vehicle position includes receiving vehicle location information at a mobile wireless device via short-range communication from the vehicle, storing the received vehicle location information at the wireless mobile device, receiving a request from a user of the wireless mobile device for a navigational route to the vehicle, determining the location of the wireless mobile device, and providing at the wireless mobile device the navigational route between the wireless mobile device and the vehicle based on the wireless mobile device location and vehicle location. This can be helpful where a user has parked his or her car and thereafter needs assistance locating where it is parked.
US08744739B2
A method of initializing the mass of a motor vehicle after a restart, for controlling a starting process of the motor vehicle a from a standstill. During operation of the motor vehicle, its mass is computed and the determined mass values are stored and, from the stored mass values, a vehicle-specific maximum mass value and/or a vehicle-specific minimum mass value is determined. The vehicle-specific maximum mass value and/or the vehicle-specific minimum mass value, determined in this manner, is subsequently used for initializing the mass of the motor vehicle after restarting the vehicle.
US08744735B2
An embodiment provides a traffic information generating method for generating traffic information about a road on which a vehicle travels. A vehicle speed is detected by a vehicle speed sensor at predetermined distance or time intervals. By referring to a prescribed speed, a prescribed distance, and a link determination distance, a congestion degree associated with the vehicle speed is detected.
US08744728B2
Over a diesel engine's lifetime, engine efficiency may be reduced and some of this may be attributable to sulfur deposit accumulation in the engine. A method for controlling operation of a diesel engine operating on a fuel is provided. The method may include adjusting an injection of fuel to the engine in response to a sulfur content of the fuel.
US08744727B2
A control device for an internal combustion engine which can highly precisely realize required torque including a high-frequency component with high responsiveness. The control device sets torque with a low frequency included in the required torque as an air quantity controlling torque, and calculates a target air quantity for realizing the air quantity controlling torque based on data in which a relationship of the air quantity and torque is set. The control device controls the air quantity in accordance with the target air quantity. Further, the control device sets torque including both a low frequency and a high frequency as air-fuel ratio controlling torque, and calculates an air-fuel ratio corresponding to the air-fuel ratio controlling torque and a present air quantity as a target air-fuel ratio. The control device controls a fuel injection amount in accordance with the target air-fuel ratio.
US08744719B2
Disclosed is a vehicle running control device that controls the speed of a vehicle on the basis of the information of a set inter-vehicle distance or a set vehicle speed according to the detection state of a vehicle in front. When an accelerator pedal or a brake pedal of the vehicle is operated and the vehicle in front of the vehicle is present, the set inter-vehicle distance is updated. When the pedal of the vehicle is operated and the vehicle in front of the vehicle is absent, the set vehicle speed is updated.
US08744714B2
A vehicle braking control system includes a wheel cylinder which applies a braking force in accordance with a fluid pressure to a vehicle wheel and a control device which controls the fluid pressure of the wheel cylinder based on the vehicle wheel acceleration. Then, the control device applies the predetermined fluid pressure to the wheel cylinder so as to acquire a return level of the vehicle wheel acceleration and calculates a control target value of the fluid pressure based on a behavior of the vehicle wheel acceleration after starting a sudden braking operation and before starting ABS control.
US08744711B2
Brake control device for controlling actuators for influencing a braking function of a vehicle, including at least one logic circuit for controlling at least one braking function, wherein the control device controls at least one function of an electronic braking system and one parking brake function, wherein the brake control device includes electric power supply connections of at least the first kind and the second kind, wherein the first kind is connected to a reference potential and the second kind is connected to a different potential than the reference potential, and wherein the first kind or second kind is electrically connected to at least one functional element for controlling the electronic braking system and to at least one functional element for controlling the parking brake function, and/or is electrically connected to at least one functional element for controlling the electronic braking system and the parking brake function.
US08744707B2
An engine powered wheeled machine having improved engine over speed and under speed protection includes a parallel path transmission having a gear train with first and second transmission inputs and a transmission output, and including a hydraulic variator having a variator output driving the first transmission input, the hydraulic variator having a variator pump and a variator motor, the displacement of the variator pump being controlled by a variator actuator. The machine further includes an engine having an engine output driving the second transmission input and driving the variator pump and a controller for receiving one or more values indicative of one or more ranges of permissible engine speed, a value indicative of an actual engine speed, and a value indicative of the position of the variator actuator, with the controller being configured to control the position of the variator actuator based on state space gain mapping to maintain the engine speed within the one or more ranges of permissible engine speed.
US08744699B2
A bicycle operating characteristic control apparatus includes a first bicycle component and a second bicycle component, wherein the second bicycle component is changeable from a first status to a second status. The first bicycle component includes a base member for coupling to a bicycle frame, a movable member coupled for movement relative to the base member, and a chain guide coupled to the movable member for guiding a chain among a plurality of sprockets in response to movement of the movable member. A biasing device provides a biasing force to the chain guide for tensioning the chain, and a rotation resistance changing device changes a rotational resistance of the chain guide relative to the movable member. The first bicycle component and the second bicycle component are operatively coupled so that rotational resistance of the chain guide changes in conjunction with a change of status of the second bicycle component.
US08744690B2
A method for determining a criterion of the severity of an accident by means of an acceleration signal and a solid-borne sound signal. The signal edge direction of the absolute value of the acceleration signal is detected. If the signal edge of the absolute value of the acceleration signal drops, the solid-borne sound signal which occurs in the process is evaluated. The solid-borne sound signal may be integrated and the criterion of the severity of the accident is derived therefrom. This criterion of the severity of the accident can be used directly, or as a function of criteria, to trigger the protection devices.
US08744687B2
A vehicle steering apparatus in which a mechanical coupling between a steering member and steered wheels is uncoupled, includes a steering actuator for driving a steered mechanism and a control unit for drive-controlling the steering actuator. The control unit reduces steering-stiffness using a PID control portion for drive-controlling the steering actuator according to a deviation between a target steered angle and a steered-angle detected by the steered angle sensor. A gain setting portion sets gains of the PID control portion to be relatively low when a predetermined condition is satisfied.
US08744682B2
The system and method described herein can be used to reduce the effects of periodic vibrations in an electric power steering (EPS) system for a vehicle, particularly, those that can lead to smooth road shake (SRS), torsional nibble, and/or other undesirable conditions. According to an exemplary embodiment, an electric motor is used to purposely generate counter-acting vibrations in the EPS system to cancel out the periodic vibrations generated by the wheel assemblies or corners.
US08744680B2
A method for determining a vehicle body movement of a vehicle body of a vehicle (1) using a camera (3) arranged on the vehicle (1). Camera images of vehicle surroundings are thereby continuously recorded using the camera (3) and image position data of at least one static object (8) are determined by a processor in camera images recorded at different times. Using the time-based sequence of the determined image position data the vehicle body movement is determined by the processor. Further, a method for determining a spring compression movement of at least one wheel (7), mounted in a sprung fashion, of a vehicle (1) which comprises a camera (3) arranged on the vehicle (1).
US08744679B2
A tire pressure adjustment method and system is provided. The method includes receiving from a plurality of sensors in a vehicle, tread depth data associated with tread depths at multiple points on a tire tread comprised by a tire on the vehicle. The tread depth data is analyzed. A tire pressure value for an internal portion of the tire is determined based on results of the analysis. The tire pressure value is associated with modifying a group of tread depths during operation of the vehicle. In response, a command signal is generated. The command signal is configured to command a tire pressure modification device to adjust a current tire pressure value of the internal portion of the tire to the determined tire pressure value. The command signal is transmitted to the tire pressure modification device resulting in the current tire pressure value being adjusted to determined tire pressure value.
US08744666B2
The present invention relates to systems and methods for vehicles to safely closely follow one another through partial automation. Following closely behind another vehicle has significant fuel savings benefits, but is unsafe when done manually by the driver. On the opposite end of the spectrum, fully autonomous solutions require inordinate amounts of technology, and a level of robustness that is currently not cost effective.
US08744663B2
In an apparatus for controlling an autonomous operating vehicle having an operating machine and a magnetic sensor adapted to detect a border of a travel-scheduled area, the vehicle is controlled to travel around the area from a start point along the border to sequentially record traveling directions and traveled distances on a bitmap. The generated travel trajectory is transformed to map information. A position of the vehicle is detected using bits of the bitmap of the transformed map information, and the vehicle is controlled to, as traveling straight in the north-south directions, while perform the operation with the operating machine based on the calculated traveling direction, the calculated traveled distance and the determined position, utilizing a primary reference direction obtained from a geomagnetic sensor as a reference.
US08744655B2
The present invention controls torque of a hybrid vehicle that calculates power and torque of each motor when the hybrid vehicle provided with two motors operates at a transient state are used. More specifically, target power of a battery is determined. Then calculations are performed to determine target torque of the first motor, target torque of the second motor, target torque of an engine, and target speed of the engine at a steady state. The torque of the first motor at a transient state is calculated from the target torque of the second motor at the steady state and speeds of the first and second motors. Finally, torque of the second motor at the transient state is calculated from the torque of the first motor at the transient state and the speeds of the first and second motors.
US08744652B1
The present invention relates generally to ground transportation systems, and more particularly to a fixed guideway transportation system that achieves a superior cost benefit ratio, is lower in net present cost and thus more easily justified for lower density corridors, and can provide passenger carrying capacities appropriate for higher density corridors serviced by mass rapid transit systems today. According to certain aspects, the present invention provides a braking control system and methodology that enables the implementation of related systems and methods that achieve safe headways at higher speeds than conventionally possible, while maintaining collision avoidance capabilities that support necessary MTBH criteria. In embodiments, a brake assembly for an axle of a vehicle provides redundancy and load-sharing such that failures are guaranteed to not occur above required safety criteria.
US08744643B2
A vehicle controller which can perform appropriate control even when an acceleration sensor is mounted in a movable portion of a vehicle. The vehicle controller includes an acceleration sensor attached to a cabin movable around a shaft, an open/closed state detection section which detects the open/closed state of the cabin, and a correction section which corrects the output value of the acceleration sensor. When the open/closed state detection section detects that the cabin is opened and then closed, the correction section performs correction. When the acceleration sensor is provided in the cabin serving as a movable portion, the inclination of the acceleration sensor may differ slightly before and after the cabin is opened.
US08744641B2
An electric power supply system has, as multiple storage units, an output type battery of high output and small capacity and a capacity type battery of low output and large capacity. The charge-discharge electric power of each of the storage units is controlled by a controller according to a charge-discharge schedule for a prediction period. Based on a predicted power consumption schedule, a predicted power generation schedule, and a charge-discharge characteristic of each of the storage units, the controller determines a charge-discharge schedule with regards to an optimal evaluation index, and controls the storage units in accordance with the charge-discharge schedule.
US08744635B2
A control system for an energy production facility includes a plant controller for receiving an indication of a measured power output of the energy production facility that includes power generators and produces output signals. The system also includes a processing unit operably coupled to the plant controller and responsive to executable computer instructions when executed on the processing unit cause the plant controller to: create an output signal that causes an energy storage device to discharge in the event power reserves of the power generators can not met the requested ramp down rate; and create an output signal that causes the energy storage device to charge up in the event that the power capability of the power generators can meet the requested ramp down rate.
US08744634B2
A retrofit kit for a turbine system is provided that includes a safety instrumented system (SIS) controller having a first plurality of functions and the SIS controller is configured to be coupled to a turbine-generator controller, wherein the SIS controller permits a startup function of the turbine-generator controller based on a plurality of inputs from a turbine.
US08744628B2
An autonomous moving floor-treating robot and a control method thereof for edge-following floor-treating are provided. The control method includes the following steps: the floor-treating robot collides with an obstacle and is deflected toward the direction away from the obstacle by a basic angle after the collision, measures an initial signal strength value by a side-looking sensor after the deflection, and then moves on and treats the floor; a real-time signal strength value is acquired by said side-looking sensor alter the robot runs for a predetermined time; the difference value between said two signal strength values is compared, and whether the difference value is in a predetermined range is judged, if yes, the robot keeps moving and treating the floor, if not, the robot is driven to be deflected by an adjusting angle and acquires the current real-time signal strength value; the difference value between said current and the last real-time signal strength values is compared, and whether the difference value is in a predetermined range is judged, if yes, the robot keeps moving and treating the floor, if not, the steps of deflection, comparing and so on are implemented. The present invention is unaffected by the media of the obstacle, and can effectively treat the edge region of the obstacle.
US08744622B2
A system for information management has a compilation device collecting information particular to a vending device located therein, a PDA useable for receipt, manipulation or inputting information into the compilation device. An activation device triggers the compilation device to prepare it to export or import information to or from the PDA. The compilation device has a power source and activation sensor for activation of thereof and in a dormant state prior to such activation, thereby conserving the energy stored within the power source, and allowing the data compilation device to remain as small as possible. The PDA has operating software which is able to synchronize multiple PDAs to a computer server and is also capable of having route management software for use by field engineers.
US08744619B2
An automatic prescription drug dispenser including a remote dispenser, a prescription entry system, and a communications network. The remote dispenser transmits and receives information from the communications network and dispenses prescription drugs to the patient. The prescription entry system transmits and receives information from the communications network and provides an input system for the prescriber to electronically enter individual prescriptions for each patient. The communications network coordinates communications between the doctor, insurance carrier, and the remote dispenser. The remote dispenser stores, retrieves, and labels prescription drug and over-the-counter products directly to patients through a remote automated dispenser, a prescription entry system, and a communications network.
US08744603B2
A method for executing mechanical overload protection to prevent commanding a control signal to a linear actuator that may mechanically overload the linear actuator when an overload condition of the linear actuator is detected, the linear actuator utilized for controlling a movable element associated with the linear actuator responsive to the control signal, includes monitoring an overload condition based on position change of the movable element associated with the linear actuator during an integration period and excess energy during the integration period, de-energizing the linear actuator when an overload condition has been detected, monitoring an overload retry counter based on the number of cycles the overload condition is detected, comparing the overload retry counter to an overload retry threshold, an reenergizing the linear actuator when the overload retry counter is less than the overload retry threshold and maintaining de-energizing of the linear actuator when the overload retry counter is at least the overload retry threshold.
US08744600B2
A medical device lead includes an electrode, a helically coiled conductor electrically coupled to the electrode, and a polymer sheath formed over the helically coiled conductor. The helically coiled conductor includes a plurality of turns helically wound around a longitudinal axis of the conductor, and consists of one filar.
US08744579B2
The invention provides methods and apparatus for determining in a non-tracking pacing mode (e.g., DDI/R, VVI/R) whether a ventricular pacing stimulus is capturing a paced ventricle, including some or all of the following aspects. For example, increasing a ventricular pacing rate a nominal amount to an overdrive pacing rate higher than a most recent heart rate and evaluating a conduction interval from a first pacing ventricle to a second sensing ventricle and then continuing to monitor the underlying rate to ensure that a threshold testing pacing rate will not exceed a predetermined minimum interval and providing pacing stimulation to the first ventricle and sensing the second ventricle to determine whether the pacing stimulation to the first ventricle was one of sub-threshold and supra-threshold. The methods and apparatus are especially useful in conjunction with ensuring actual delivery of a ventricular pacing regime (e.g., cardiac resynchronization therapy or “CRT”).
US08744576B2
Methods and/or devices for sampling a patient's intrinsic AV conduction time during cardiac therapy that may, e.g., change the AV delays to values based on the AV delays themselves, previously-sampled intrinsic AV conduction times, and/or one or more other parameters directly related to AV delays to provide a time period during which to measure the patient's intrinsic AV conduction time.
US08744568B2
Medical devices comprising an electroactive polymer powered by a photovoltaic cell. In one embodiment, the medical device has an electroactive component comprising an electroactive polymer. The medical device further comprises a photovoltaic cell as a source of electrical power for electrically stimulating the electroactive polymer. The medical device further comprises a first electrode and a second electrode, both of which are electrically connected to the photovoltaic cell. The electroactive component covers over at least a portion of the first electrode. Also disclosed is a method of treating a patient using a medical device having an electroactive polymer powered by a photovoltaic cell.
US08744563B2
A mental disorder analysis apparatus includes a storage portion in which sleep electroencephalogram information, which is information on electroencephalograms during sleep of a test subject, is stored, an analyzing portion that performs analysis regarding presence or absence of a mental disorder using the sleep electroencephalogram information stored in the storage portion, and an output portion that outputs a result of the analysis performed by the analyzing portion.
US08744558B2
Methods, apparatus, and systems are provided to control contraction of the heart. At least one sensing element receives signals indicating electrical activity of sinus rhythm of the heart. The electrical activity is monitored and analyzed to detect an event. In addition, the electrical activity is monitored to detect, for example, premature stimulation and contraction of a portion of the heart, such as the left ventricle. Contraction in the pre-excited portion of the heart is then suppressed using electrical pulses. The heart may then be allowed to contract naturally, or a stimulating pulse may be applied to assist the heart in contracting.
US08744543B2
A technique is provided for processing a physiological signal to compensate for artifacts. The technique includes identifying artifacts within the physiological signal. The technique also includes performing one or more multi-resolution decompositions, such as wavelet transformations, on the physiological signal and compensating for the identified artifacts in some or all of the respective decomposition components. The modified decomposition components may be reconstructed to generate an artifact-compensated signal which may be provided to a monitor or other device which is otherwise not configured to compensate for signal artifacts.
US08744541B1
A superconducting multi-bit digital mixer, designed using rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) logic, for multiplying two independent digital streams, at least one of these comprising a plurality of parallel bit lines, wherein the output is also a similar plurality of bit lines. In a preferred embodiment, one of the digital streams represents a local oscillator signal, and the other digital stream digital radio frequency input from an analog-to-digital converter. The multi-bit mixer comprises an array of bit-slices, with the local oscillator signal generated using shift registers. This multi-bit mixer is suitable for an integrated circuit with application to a broadband digital radio frequency receiver, a digital correlation receiver, or a digital radio frequency transmitter. A synchronous pulse distribution network is used to ensure proper operation at data rates of 20 GHz or above.
US08744537B1
A multifunction cover with touch screen display, icons, and a keyboard is described. A multifunction touch screen enabled mobile device may be configured to be connected to the separate cover, which may be attached to the device and detached from the device. The mobile device may be enabled with a cellular voice and data communication, WiFi connectivity, Bluetooth connectivity, and Internet Protocol connectivity. The mobile device may be enabled to play videos, capture photos, and stream multimedia content.
US08744531B2
A system and method for providing calling feature icons in a user interface that allow users to determine with ease the status of different calling features, and in respect of at least one embodiment, to identify with ease the communication lines associated with calling features that have been enabled (and/or disabled) on the mobile device. In example embodiments, for each calling feature, at most one general calling feature icon associated with the respective calling feature is displayed in a general calling feature icon display field of a call screen if the respective calling feature applies to at least one of a plurality of communication lines accessible at the mobile device. In some embodiments, line-specific calling feature icons may also be displayed in an active line data display field and/or a line selection menu.
US08744526B2
A communication terminal having one or more one-touch-dial buttons simplifies operations needed for registration of destination data such as phone numbers or mail addresses. A communication terminal (e.g., a cellular phone) having one or more one-touch-dial buttons includes a destination-data registration unit (e.g., a phone-directory database) that allows destination data such as phone numbers or mail addresses to be registered therein, a one-touch-dial registration unit that allows destination data to be registered therein so as to be associated with the one or more one-touch-dial buttons, and a control unit that, in response to an operation of the one or more one-touch-dial buttons, determines whether destination data has been registered in the one-touch-dial registration unit or the destination-data registration unit, and that outputs a result of the determination and a query message regarding registration of the destination data.
US08744521B2
A mobile communication terminal comprises a projection module for projecting images on a projection surface external to the mobile communication terminal; a display screen on which a first image and a second image are rendered; a user interface to allow a user interact with the mobile communication terminal; and a controller to process information, in response to user interaction with the user interface to generate an output via the projection module; wherein the user interacts with the user interface to cause at least the first image to be projected on the projection surface by the projection module, while both the first image and the second image are displayed on the display screen.
US08744516B2
A Generic Client (GC) operates multiple virtual network interfaces that communicate simultaneously to different networks. Each virtual interface is capable of independent communication over an associated network through the same physical interface. In one implementation, the GC provides simultaneous communication with both infrastructure and ad-hoc networks in compliance with the IEEE 802.11 protocol. The GC provides these dual modes of operation by instantiating different infrastructure and ad-hoc virtual interfaces.
US08744505B2
A method and apparatus of allocating a Physical Cell Identifier (PCI) is disclosed in an embodiment of the present invention allowing different cells to operate on different frequencies while eliminating or reducing risk of PCI conflicts. Thereby PCI allocation is provided that is effective also in a multi-frequency environment.
US08744497B2
A method capable of avoiding interruption due to incoming call is adapted to a mobile communication device. A subscriber identity module (SIM) card is installed on the mobile communication device. The method includes steps of setting a non-interruption period; retrieving an incoming call time of an incoming call signal when receiving the incoming call signal; determining whether the incoming call time is within the non-interruption period; stopping to supply power to the SIM card if the incoming call time is within the non-interruption period; and normally supplying power to the SIM card if the incoming call time is not within the non-interruption period.
US08744495B2
In general, the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods systems, and program products for determining a change in a mode of transportation. A change in a mode of transportation of the mobile computing device may be determined by determining that a speed of the mobile computing device has changed. A first geographical location is stored as a geographical location of the mobile computing device that corresponds to the change in mode of transportation. A graphical indication of the first geographical location is displayed. The graphical indication of the first geographical location is different than graphical indications for one or more other geographical locations of the mobile computing device at one or more other times. The one or more other geographical locations were not determined to correspond to a change in mode of transportation.
US08744491B2
Location based wireless services in a service provider's network are intertwined with a message database (text and/or audio) to automatically provide location information regarding the subscriber to the message database, without requiring the wireless device itself to provide the location information. A location management system is provided to perform the location management functions of determining subscriber location (e.g., by call/sector ID, angle of arrival (AOA), time difference of arrival (TDOA), time of arrival (TOA)), and of mapping the location to the desired text and/or audio. Speed information may also be determined by the location management system, or the subscriber may be prompted to input a particular mode of transportation, or generally indicate their speed. Of course, the slower the speed of the subscriber, the fewer location updates will be required, lessening the burden on the tour guide system in the wireless network.
US08744489B2
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal which transfers or receives data, including location information, in various ways, and a method of transferring or receiving data using the same.
US08744486B2
Delivering content to a requesting device over a content delivery network, the content being deliverable in only one or more restricted geographic regions and the requesting device being communicatively connected to a cellular communications service provider via a cellular communications network, the method comprising steps of: receiving a network identifier of the requesting device uniquely identifying the requesting device in the cellular communications network; transmitting a verification message over the cellular communications network for receipt by the requesting device; receiving, from the requesting device, an access control submission; receiving, from the cellular communications service provider, location information corresponding to a geographic location of the requesting device; and in response to a determination that the access control submission derives from the transmitted verification message and the location information indicates the requesting device is in one of the one or more restricted geographic regions, delivering the content to the requesting device.
US08744485B2
Techniques are generally described for determining locations of a plurality of communication devices in a network. In some examples, methods for creating a location discovery infrastructure (LDI) for estimating locations of one or more of a plurality of communication nodes may comprise one or more of determining a plurality of locations in the terrain to place a corresponding plurality of beacon nodes, determining a plurality of beacon node groups for the placed beacon nodes, and determining a schedule for the placed beacon nodes to be active. Additional variants and embodiments are also disclosed.
US08744477B2
Disclosed is a method for determining the location of a targeted mobile set using SUPL (Secure User Plane Location) in a wireless communications network, including sending a target set location initiation message to the targeted mobile set in response to a request message, causing a home positioning server to exchange the capacities of positioning methods with the targeted mobile set to select and store a suitable positioning method, and determining the location of the targeted mobile set by using the selected positioning method previously stored whenever the location is requested. Accordingly it is unnecessary for the targeted set to resend the target set location initiation message to the positioning server whenever repeating the location calculation for the repeated deferred service.
US08744473B2
Downlink interference alignment schemes are described which provide, among other things, channel state information (CSI) from the UEs using a constant amplitude codebook. By providing only phase information associated the UEs' channel states, instead of both amplitude and phase information, fewer bits can be used to inform the BSs of the UEs effective channels, thereby reducing the bandwidth requirements associated with the transmission of CSI by UEs for downlink interference alignment purposes. According to other embodiments, feedback information can be used to perform user selection scheduling and rate balancing.
US08744472B2
A method for reporting channel quality information in a wireless telecommunication network, wherein the network includes a radio base station in wireless communication with a plurality of user equipments by user transmission channels, and wherein the method includes the radio base station: detecting a coherence bandwidth associated to a total transmission channel, the total transmission channel including the user transmission channels of the plurality of user equipments; selecting one reporting technique for reporting channel quality information among a plurality of available reporting techniques, the selection being based on the coherence bandwidth; and transmitting a first message to each of the plurality of user equipments, the message reporting an indication of the selected reporting technique. A radio base station, a public mobile network and a user equipment suitable to implement the method are also disclosed.
US08744467B2
Mobile communication system, home radio base station, and operational frequency determination method
A home radio base station according to the present invention includes a receiving unit 11 configured to receive notification information in peripheral cells of the same radio communication scheme as that of the home radio base station, an acquiring unit 12 configured to acquire operational frequencies in the same radio communication scheme as that of the home radio base station, from the received notification information, and a determining unit 13 configured to determine an operational frequency for the home radio base station, from the acquired operational frequencies.
US08744464B2
A device establishes a connection with a user equipment (UE) via a macrocell associated with the device, and provides, to a femto device within range of the macrocell, information identifying resource blocks to allocate to the UE when the UE enters into a femtocell generated by the femto device. The femto device provides the information to the UE when the UE enters into the femtocell. The device also maintains the connection of the UE with macrocell, via the allocated resource blocks identified in the information, when the UE enters into the femtocell.
US08744461B2
A transmitting apparatus selects any one of areas included in a transmission area of a first signal used for a first process, and transmits the first signal by using the selected area. The area is selected according to a type of information to be transmitted among a plurality of types of information capable of being transmitted to a receiving apparatus. The receiving apparatus receives the first signal transmitted by the transmitting apparatus, and performs a second process by using information according to the area in which the first signal is received.
US08744459B2
When a service providing device which provides a service to a mobile communication terminal enters a service stop mode, a signal indicating that the service stop mode is set in is transmitted to service providing devices other than that service providing device. Upon reception of the signal, the service providing device which has transmitted the signal releases the resource of the mobile communication terminal to which a service has been provided.
US08744451B2
Handover of a call to a dual-mode phone from cellular to Wi-Fi. When handing over a call mediated by a mobility controller to a dual-mode phone and switching the call from a cellular to a Wi-Fi call, the mobility controller initiates a Wi-Fi connection to the dual mode phone. When the Wi-Fi connection is established, and with the cellular connection through the mobility controller still in place, the mobility controller starts a timer with a predetermined value and the dual-mode phone initiates release of the cellular connection. When the timer expires, the mobility controller switches the call from the cellular connection to the Wi-Fi connection.
US08744448B2
A radio cell station CS that relays a call connection of a radio personal station PS to a management device ME, includes: a call connection control section that controls the call connection of the radio personal station PS; and a position registration request section that requests, of the management device ME, a position registration that associates identification information on the radio personal station PS with identification information on the radio cell station CS. When a request for handover from a radio cell station CS3 to a radio cell station CS4 is received from the radio personal station PS that conducts the call connection through the radio cell station CS, the call connection of the radio personal station PS goes through the radio cell station CS4 and the radio cell station CS2 under control. While the call connection going through the radio cell station CS2 is being conducted, the position registration is not requested of the management device ME. When the call connection going through the radio cell station CS4 and the radio cell station CS2 is ended, the position registration is requested of the management device ME.
US08744447B2
A wireless connecting method includes a connection monitoring step, a connection parameter retaining step, and a connection restoring step. The connection monitoring step monitors the wireless connection between the communication terminal device and the base station. The connection parameter retaining step sets a communication session retention time period that is longer than a connection parameter retention time period, and retains a connection parameter. A connection parameter when the wireless connection is disconnected is retained in at least one of the communication terminal device and the base station for the communication session retention time period exceeding the connection parameter retention time period. The connection restoring step executes, after the connection parameter retention time period has elapsed, when the communication session retention time period has not elapsed, an initial connecting process and restores the connection using the connection parameter stored when the wireless connection is disconnected.
US08744438B2
A cell search method for a multi-mode telecommunication apparatus is disclosed. The method comprises receiving signals present in a frequency range; transforming received signals into frequency domain; estimating power spectral density from transformed signals; estimating probability of different communication modes by correlating the estimated power spectral density with power spectral density signatures of said different communication modes; and performing cell search according to estimated most probable communication mode. Such an apparatus and a computer program for performing the method are also disclosed.
US08744437B2
The disclosure discloses a method for realizing user accessibility and a multi-mode terminal. A UE initiates, after a tracking area update (TAU) periodic timer of the UE expires, an update process to a mobile switching center/visitor location register (MSC/VLR) in the case that an idle mode signaling reduction (ISR) is activated and the UE resides in a global system for mobile communications/universal mobile telecommunication system (GSM/UMTS). The disclosure improves user experience.
US08744431B2
A method and an apparatus for network based wireless network test which allows wireless network operators to reduce the manpower and resource used in traditional drive test task by utilizing existing data in the network and the trend that more and more mobile devices can provide precise location and mobile applications/services are requesting location related information near users or reporting user location information. By associating the right event logs data extracted from control plane with location information extracted from user plane, this method can generate drive test like results with highly accurate geographical information and correspondent wireless signal measurements. Furthermore, this method is applicable to all generation of the wireless network as long as the necessary data are available.
US08744425B2
A mobile terminal apparatus includes: a microphone; a switch control unit, which switches between a normal mode, in which a voice uttered toward the microphone is transmitted to an intended party, and a mute mode, in which the voice is not transmitted to the intended party; and a proximity sensor, which detects whether a detection object is in proximity to the proximity sensor, wherein, while the mute mode is being executed, if the detection object is detected by the proximity sensor, the switch control unit switches to the normal mode.
US08744420B2
Some embodiments provide a method for initiating a video conference using a first mobile device. The method presents, during an audio call through a wireless communication network with a second device, a selectable user-interface (UI) item on the first mobile device for switching from the audio call to the video conference. The method receives a selection of the selectable UI item. The method initiates the video conference without terminating the audio call. The method terminates the audio call before allowing the first and second devices to present audio and video data exchanged through the video conference.
US08744418B2
Apparatus and methods are disclosed related to managing characteristics of a mobile device based upon capacitive detection of materials proximate the mobile device. One such method includes receiving a first capacitive sensor measurement with a first capacitive sensor of the mobile device. The method further includes determining a value indicative of a material adjacent to the mobile device based on a correspondence between the first capacitive sensor measurement and stored values corresponding to different materials. The method further includes sending instructions to adjust a characteristic of the mobile device based on the determined value indicative of the material adjacent to the mobile device.
US08744416B2
A method for adjusting ring volume through short message service includes steps of a communication device determining whether a volume adjusting condition is satisfied when there is a missed call; the communication device transmitting a first short message if the volume adjusting condition has been satisfied, wherein a first information element identifier (IEI) is set in the first short message and defined as a volume adjusting request in transfer protocol user data (TPUD) in advance; the communication device determining whether a second IEI is set in a second short message when receiving the second short message, wherein the second IEI is defined as a volume adjusting response in TPUD in advance; and the communication device selectively adjusting a ring volume thereof to maximum level if the second IEI is set in the second short message.
US08744415B2
A mobile wireless communications device is to communicate with a server storing a plurality of file folders, and includes a display, a wireless transceiver, and a processor all carried by a housing. The processor is configured to wirelessly download an initial portion of a selected file folder from the server, with the server still having a remainder portion of the selected file folder available for downloading. The processor also generates search results by performing a local search of the initial portion of the file folder, and performs a remote search of the reminder portion of the selected file folder. The processor further presents the search results on the display.
US08744407B2
A computer-implemented system and method to manage the communication of a user are disclosed. In one embodiment, when a person tries to electronically convey a message to the user, the status of the user, the identity of the person, and the urgency of the message can be identified. The access priority of the person can be determined based on the person's identity. Then, the message can be managed using one or more rules and in view of the status of the user, the access priority of the person and the urgency of the message.
US08744405B2
A wireless network system provided with a setting change instruction unit transmitting setting change instructions to all of the client systems based on a setting change request of the wireless network from a single client system and a wireless communication control system side setting content update unit updating the wireless network setting content in the wireless communication control system in synchronization with the processing of the setting change instruction unit. Each of the client systems is provided with a setting change instruction reception unit receiving a setting change instruction from the setting change instruction unit and a client system side setting content update unit updating the wireless network setting content in the client system based on the setting change instruction received by the setting change instruction reception unit.
US08744400B1
Methods and systems for obtaining the location of a caller during an emergency or other telephone call. Before or during a call, a phone system can obtain from one or more sources a subscriber access line identity associated with a subscriber location record that includes a subscriber access line identity attribute and a subscriber location attribute. A phone system can send a query that includes the subscriber access line identity to a subscriber location query system that returns a subscriber location record or a subscriber location to the phone system. The phone system can then display the caller location information to a phone system, an agent or operator so that emergency services can be quickly and accurately dispatched. Using similar procedure and a memory, phone systems can also determine if a subscriber phone has or is changing location. Methods for testing the emergency call capabilities of a subscriber access line.
US08744393B2
A system and method is provided for filtering and amplifying a signal where amplification can be distributed between stages of a filter and gain can be assigned throughout the filter to optimize system performance. Such a system can be implemented in the baseband section of RF receivers. VGAs can be implemented between filter stages, such as biquads, or VGAs can be incorporated in filter stages. Substantially linear VGAs comprising a parallel resistor array can be incorporated in the circuitry of the filter stages to reduce distortion. Gain can be assigned dynamically in the amplification stages to improve noise and/or linearity performance. For example, gain assignments can be implemented so that high power undesired signal components are filtered out before amplification to prevent component saturation, and low power signals are amplified before they are filtered to improve noise performance.
US08744387B2
The wireless device includes: a frequency setting unit which sets a frequency; a first frequency display unit which displays the set frequency as a set-up frequency in numbers; and a second frequency display unit which draws at least one predetermined frequency range, centering the set-up frequency, on a scale having a fan shape by interlocking the at least one predetermined frequency range with the setting of the frequency performed by the frequency setting unit. Here, the scale is rotated about a virtual center point having the fan shape of the scale, and a center of the scale is shown to always correspond to the set-up frequency.
US08744385B2
A frequency conversion system includes a mixer, which is coupled to mix an input signal with a Local Oscillator (LO) signal, so as to produce an output signal. Control circuitry is configured to adjust an actual level of the LO signal provided to the mixer, so as to maintain the actual level substantially constant. A nulling signal generator is coupled to inject a nulling signal into the input signal prior to mixing with the LO signal adjusted by the control circuitry.
US08744383B2
Methods and apparatus for active and passive dynamic electromagnetic radiation emission control in wireless devices by limiting transmit power in individual devices is disclosed. In various embodiments, electromagnetic radiation emissions from wireless devices are dynamically controlled using variable transmit power limits acquired through the use of RF ID/NFC tags that indicate transmit power limits, where such power limiting tags are embedded in clothing, furniture, etc., communication of transmit power limits over Bluetooth or other short range technologies, location-based transmit power limits, user input transmit power limits. Controlling the transmit power of mobiles as well as femtocells/access points for the purpose of minimizing SAR using variable transmit power limits is detailed.
US08744382B2
A fast tracking power supply device, a fast tracking power supply control method, and communication equipment are provided. The fast tracking power supply device includes: a basic voltage output unit, configured to output a basic voltage; a basic current unit, configured to output a basic current; a linear amplifier, configured to output a compensation current and a compensation voltage, the linear amplifier is connected in parallel with the basic current output unit, and then is connected in series with the basic voltage output unit. The device can output signal with high efficiency and bandwidth.
US08744376B2
The present invention relates to a method and a user equipment for use in a wireless communication system that allow for improved uplink transmit diversity performance by using downlink measurements for making informed decisions on whether or not to change precoding vector for uplink transmission. The user equipment measures (32) downlink characteristics, such as received power, on a plurality of antennas of the user equipment. Based on the measured downlink characteristics a precoding vector for unlink transmission is determined (38). The determined precoding vector is then used to perform uplink transmission (31).
US08744373B2
The invention provides an antenna system for wireless communications and in particular to a multiple antenna system for operation in conjunction with a radio frequency (RF) front end for wireless communication. The antenna system comprises one or more antennas configurable for transmission and reception in a first set of configurations and configured for transmission in a second set of configurations. The antenna system further comprises two or more antennas configurable for MIMO-diversity reception for the second set of configurations. The antennas that are configured for MIMO-diversity reception may be tunable, and may have similar characteristics to enhance MIMO reception. Mobile communications terminals utilizing the antenna system, and radio-frequency (RF) front ends for operation in conjunction with the antenna system are also provided. The antenna system may support communications in multiple frequency bands and/or multiple communication standards of operation.
US08744363B2
The disclosed invention relates to a transceiver system configured to cancel RF second-order intermodulation distortion (IMD2) within a differential reception path. In some embodiments, the transceiver system has one or more common-mode attenuation elements that attenuate common-mode interferer signals within the differential reception path. The common-mode attenuation elements detect a common-mode interferer from one or more nodes within a transceiver system front-end. One or more properties of the detected common-mode interferer are adjusted and then fed into the differential reception path, where the adjusted common-mode signal attenuates the common-mode interferers. In other embodiments, the differential reception path has a tunable amplifying stage. The tunable amplifying stage has first and second amplifier elements that are independently operated to intentionally introduce an operating parameter mismatch between the elements. The intentional mismatch may be tuned to account for different nonlinear responses of the amplifier elements to mitigate IMD2 within the differential reception path.
US08744361B2
A communication system to feed back an index of a precoding matrix is provided. A terminal may feed back an index of an optimal precoding matrix based on estimated channel status. A base station may transmit data to the terminal based on the index of the precoding matrix received from the terminal.
US08744359B2
The present invention relates to an electronic equipment for a wireless communication system comprising a near field interface (4) for exchanging contact information with at least one further electronic equipment via near field communication, said contact information serving for communicating within the wireless communication system, a group editing means (3) for creating a group of contact information comprising at least the received contact information, whereby each contact information of the group relates to an electronic equipment, and a communication means (8) for setting up a communication within the wireless communication system to the group of electronic equipments in accordance with the group of contact information. The present invention further relates to a method for operating such an electronic equipment.
US08744353B2
A Bluetooth mouse for fast switching linking objects comprises a signal processing circuit triggered by a key unit to generate a control signal according to a displacement amount of the mouse. The signal processing circuit is electrically connected with a Bluetooth transmission device. The mouse has a pairing information memory storing pairing codes for establishing data transmission linkages between the Bluetooth transmission device and at least one information processing systems. The key unit is programmed one key or a combination of the keys to trigger the signal processing circuit to generate an object-switching signal. The object-switching signal drives the Bluetooth transmission device to access one pairing code from the pairing information memory according to the displacement amount of the mouse, and establishes a data transmission linkage with one information processing system corresponding to the pairing code.
US08744352B2
A device receives distances between an access point, located on a floor of a building, and other access points located on the same floor, and determines, based on the distances, relative location information associated with the access point, where the relative location information provides a location of the access point relative to the other access points. The device also determines, using a triangulation method, an actual location of the access point based on the relative location information. The device further maps the actual location of the access point to a floor plan of the floor, and displays the floor plan with the mapped actual location of the access point.
US08744351B2
A relay host wireless device is paired with a target host wireless device over a secure link. The relay host wireless device is operable to acquire link security information, which is associated with a link between the target host wireless device and a wireless end-point device, from the target host wireless device. The relay host wireless device is enabled to establish a link with the target host wireless device by faking its identity as an assumed identity of the target host wireless device. The acquired link security information is applied to the established link. The relay host wireless device is enabled to relay content between the target host wireless device and the wireless end-point device via the established fake link using said assumed identity of the target host wireless device and the secure link between the relay host wireless device and the target host wireless device, successively.
US08744343B2
The present invention relates to method and device that controls the mobility of a terminal in a broadband wireless access system including a relay station. The present invention provides an efficient method for controlling terminal mobility of a relay station and a method for performing handover of a terminal. The method for controlling mobility of terminal at a relay station in a broadband wireless access system according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises step wherein at least one neighboring base station entity searched is added in a list, and a step wherein a broadcast message including the list is transmitted to the terminal.
US08744334B2
The present invention is an electrostatographic reproduction apparatus which includes a primary imaging member for producing an electrostatic latent image, a development station for applying toner particles to said latent image which forms a developed toner image, and a transfer station for transferring said developed toner image from the primary imaging member to a receiver. A fuser assembly is included for fixing the developed toner image to the receiver, to form a fused toner image on the receiver. An endless transport member is provided for transporting the receiver to or from the fuser assembly, the transport member having a substrate bearing an oil-absorbing porous layer that would tribocharge positively upon contact with negatively charged toner particles, and a porous overcoat outermost layer that does not tribocharge positively upon contact with negatively charged toner particles.
US08744313B2
An image forming apparatus driving unit includes a rotatable member which is rotatably supported, a pair of bearing portions for rotatably supporting the rotatable member, and a motor for driving the rotatable member. In addition, a driving gear is provided on a driving shaft of the motor, and a driven gear, provided outside the pair of bearing portions with respect to a rotational axis direction of the rotatable member, engages with the driving gear to be rotated integrally with the rotatable member. At least one of the driven gear and the driving gear has, with respect to the rotational axis direction of the rotatable member, a crown shape so that a central tooth surface of a tooth projects more than end tooth surfaces of the tooth at a side where the driven gear and the driving gear engage each other. During driving of the driving gear, a first position where a pressure received by the tooth surface is at a maximum and a second position where an amount of crowning formed on the driven gear or the driving gear is at a maximum are offset in a same direction.
US08744312B2
An image forming apparatus and an image forming method are provided that realize both the use of a decolorizing toner and a non-decolorizing toner and miniaturization of the apparatus.
US08744302B2
A cleaning device includes a first cleaning member, a first opposing member, a second cleaning member, a second opposing member, and a pressing member. The first and second cleaning members clean an outer surface of a belt member by coming into contact with the outer surface. The first and second opposing members are in contact with an inner face of the belt member at positions that are opposite the first and second cleaning members. The pressing member is disposed between the first and second opposing members and is in contact with the outer surface of the belt member. The pressing member presses a portion of the belt member that is located between the first and second opposing members from an outer surface side of the belt member toward an inner face side of the belt member.
US08744299B2
An image forming apparatus having a display unit for displaying a program which can be executed in the apparatus so as to be identified is disclosed. The apparatus has: an input unit for inputting a program into the image forming apparatus; a display control unit for controlling a process for displaying select keys including a plurality of select keys to instruct a selection of a desired one of a plurality of programs stored in the image forming apparatus onto a display screen displayed on the display unit; and a discriminating unit for discriminating whether the select key to instruct a selection of the program inputted by the input unit can be further displayed onto the first display screen to display the select keys corresponding to the programs registered in the image forming apparatus in response to the input of the program from the input unit or not.
US08744287B2
An image forming apparatus includes an information rewrite unit that rewrites information stored in a storage if an empty detector detects that a toner container is empty and the toner container is at least allowed to be released, and then if the empty detector detects that the toner container is not empty.
US08744286B2
An image formation apparatus includes a toner cartridge, a toner-amount detector configured to detect a toner amount in the toner cartridge, a display unit, and an analyzer. The analyzer is configured to make the display unit display a used condition of the image formation apparatus when the image formation apparatus is in a small-amount mode where the toner amount is smaller than a threshold.
US08744283B2
According to one embodiment, an image forming apparatus includes an identification-section detecting device configured to detect, on the basis of an identification section included in a developer cartridge, a type of a developer stored by the developer cartridge and detect, on the basis of an identification section included in a developing device, a type of a developer used by the developing device and a control section configured to determine, on the basis of an output of the identification-section detecting device, whether the type of the developer stored by the developer cartridge and the type of the developer used by the developing device coincide with each other, prohibit from performing image formation if the types of the developers do not coincide with each other, and set an image forming method according to the determined types of the developers if the types of the developers coincide with each other.
US08744280B1
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method comprising loading a medium onto an input tray of a imaging device; staging the medium within the imaging device, wherein staging the medium includes moving the medium from the input tray to a staging area within the imaging device; during the staging of the medium, determining an average load current of a motor that is associated with an automatic document feeder of the imaging device; and based on the average load current, determining a threshold load current of the motor, wherein the threshold load current corresponds to the panel of the imaging device having been opened.
US08744279B2
Polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in a dual-pole optical communications network is compensated for using an adaptive PMD equalizer. The PMD equalizer may include a number of substantially identical filter modules that provide partial outputs which may be combined to form a PMD compensated output. A constant modulus algorithm (CMA)-based equalizer may track PMD across both poles and generates an error signal. The CMA-based equalizer includes a filter bank, and uses an update algorithm and tap/output adjustments based on a difference between combined tap energies and an index, and feedback from a forward error correction code frame synchronizer.
US08744273B2
In a device and method for the optical transmission of data using a pulse-width-modulated LED (2), a startup phase ascertainment unit (3) for ascertaining at least one startup phase of the LED (2) as a function of a sequence of detected switching states of the LED (2) and a modulation unit (4) for modulating the data to a light signal emitted by the LED (2) during the ascertained startup phase of the LED (2) are provided, and data packets are first deleted from the data packet queue or queues after they have been successfully transmitted.
US08744267B2
An LED light and communication system includes one or more optical transceivers that have a light support having a plurality of light emitting diodes and one or more photodetectors attached thereto, and a processor in communication with the light emitting diodes and the one or more photodetectors. The processor is constructed and arranged to generate a communication signal. The one or more optical transceivers are engaged to a lighting fixture within a building. The one or more optical transceivers are constructed and arranged to communicate with a name tag.
US08744254B2
There is provided a lens control device that feeds a motor current to a lens drive motor which drives lens according to the motor current, the lens control device including: a servo computation portion that calculates a motor current setting value such that a deviation of the position of the lens to which a correction offset has been adjusted from a target position is reduced; a motor driver that generates the motor current according to the motor current setting value; and a calibration computation portion that adjusts the correction offset such that an average value of the motor current approaches zero.
US08744253B2
An image blur correcting mechanism is provided that includes an imaging element, a movable frame, a fixed frame, and first and second actuators. The imaging element has a light receiving face with first and second edges that intersects. The movable frame holds the imaging element. The fixed frame movably supports the movable frame along first and second directions that intersects. The first and second directions are parallel to the light receiving face. The first actuator is configured to move the movable frame in the first direction, and the second actuator is configured to move the movable frame in the second direction. The actuators are positioned on opposing sides of the imaging element, and disposed relative to a first perpendicular plane located perpendicular to the first edge and coincident with the second edge. The actuators are positioned on opposing sides of a second perpendicular plane located perpendicular to the second edge.
US08744238B2
Methods and apparatus for automatic content marking. In one embodiment, display information is recorded, a change in the computing environment is detected, and the recorded display information is marked in response to the detected change. A human-readable description of the change associated with the mark may also be stored. A change in the computing environment may be detected by detecting an event that reflects a change in the computing environment.
US08744237B2
Embodiments are disclosed that relate to providing commentary for video content. For example, one disclosed embodiment provides a method comprising receiving and storing an input of commentary data from each of a plurality of commentary input devices, and also, for each input of commentary data, receiving and storing identification metadata identifying a commentator, for each input of commentary data, synchronization metadata that synchronizes the commentary data with the associated media content item is received and stored. The method further comprises receiving a request from a requesting media presentation device for commentary relevant to a specified media content item and a specified user, identifying relevant commentary data based upon social network information for the specified user, and sending the relevant commentary data to the requesting client device.
US08744235B2
A method and apparatus for processing additional data in a broadcast signal, a method and apparatus for recording a broadcast signal, and a method and apparatus for reproducing the recorded broadcast signal, which allow the normal display of additional data such as closed caption data on a screen during high-speed playback. The method includes extracting additional data from a video frame in an externally received broadcast signal, storing the extracted additional data in a transport stream generated from the broadcast signal, storing the transport stream containing the additional data, extracting the additional data from the stored transport stream according to a playback command, and separating a video signal and an audio signal from the transport stream and outputting the separate video signal and audio signal such that the extracted additional data is superimposed on the output video signal.
US08744229B2
An equipment mounting frame comprising two side support structures of a selected height, each of which comprises one or more upright members defining a width of that side support structure and a foot structure extending from at least one end of the upright members. The foot structure defining a depth of that side support structure and extending across at least one quarter of the width and carries an upright series or row of fixing members wherein the two side support structures are connectable together at a distance from each other to enable equipment trays or boxes to be mounted in superposed array between the side structures by the fixing members are formed to be nestable together when unconnected to each other for shipment or storage within a volume less than twice the volume defined by width, depth, and height.
US08744228B2
A communications interconnection system includes: a communications rack having a pair of upright members; a patch panel mounted to the upright members, the patch panel having mounting locations for telecommunications connectors; and a cable management system mounted to the rack. The cable management system comprises a cable mounting member having a cable securing portion and a pair of arms attached to the cable securing portion, the arms being substantially parallel to each other and slidably mounted relative to the panel to enable adjustment of the distance between the cable securing portion and the communications rack. This configuration can enable the cable management system to be used with communications racks of different sizes and designs.
US08744227B2
An aspect of the present invention is directed to a method for forming a mirror-reflecting film on a waveguide in an optical wiring board, characterized in that a multilayer film, in which a base, a metal layer and an adhesive layer are layered in this order, is used, and the metal layer is transferred and bonded to an inclined face for mirror-reflecting film formation provided on the waveguide, with the adhesive layer of the multilayer film intervening. The present invention provides a method which, when forming a mirror-reflecting film on a waveguide in an optical wiring board, enables inexpensive and easy formation of the mirror-reflecting film, using the smallest quantity of metal possible and employing comparatively simple facilities and techniques.
US08744220B2
An optical waveguide device which is free from interference with an optical path between a light emitting element and an optical waveguide thereof, and to provide a method of manufacturing the optical waveguide device. A light emitting element (5) is provided on an upper surface of a first under-cladding layer (21), and a second under-cladding layer (22) is provided on the upper surface of the first under-cladding layer (21), covering the light emitting element (5). A core 3 which receives light emitted from the light emitting element (5) through the second under-cladding layer (22) is provided on an upper surface of the second under-cladding layer (22). The core (3) is located in a position such that the light emitted from the light emitting element (5) is incident on the core (3).
US08744219B2
The present invention provides a compact, broad-band, and low-drive-voltage optical modulator module capable of generating any multilevel optical modulation. The optical modulator module according to an exemplary aspect of the present invention includes a digital segmented electrode structure optical modulator and m individual driving circuits. The digital segmented electrode structure optical modulator includes semiconductor optical waveguides and at least m waveguide-type optical phase modulator regions. An i-th individual driving circuit includes a driving circuit and a phase shift circuit. The driving circuit amplifies a digital input signal in synchronization with a clock signal and outputs the signal to an i-th waveguide-type optical phase modulator region. The phase shift circuit applies a delay to a signal branched from the clock signal. A j-th individual driving circuit receives an output signal from the phase shift circuit of a (j−1)-th individual driving circuit as a clock signal.
US08744218B2
An image processing device is provided that includes an image acquisition unit that obtains video data that includes a plurality of consecutive frames, and also obtains image data that correspond to some of the frames and have a higher spatial resolution than the frames. The image processing device also includes a super resolution processing unit that uses a plurality of the frames to perform super resolution processing on the frames, and that generates super resolution images that correspond to the frames. The image processing device further includes a motion estimation unit that uses the video data to detect a motion vector between the super resolution images and an image generation unit that, based on the super resolution images corresponding to the image data and on the motion vector, generates motion compensated image data that corresponds to the frames.
US08744217B2
Embodiments for contextual variable scaling relate to selection of objects. For example, such objects may include text, audio, visual, and/or physical objects. In one or more examples, such objects may be selected for variable scaling. For example, variable scaling of such selected objects may be based at least in part on a beginning attribute value and/or an ending attribute value.
US08744212B2
An image processing mask creating method includes calculating cluster energy of each point in an image processing mask, ranking the points in ascending order or descending order on the basis of the calculated cluster energy values, and allocating threshold values to the points in the image processing mask on the basis of the ranks as the process result of the ranking, wherein the cluster energy is defined as the sum of interaction values fr(∥x−y∥) having the distance ∥x−y∥ between a target point x and a point y belonging to a cluster not including the target point x as a parameter.
US08744210B2
An information processing apparatus performs first filter processing to combine pixels of an image along a predetermined direction. A line noise image is extracted by executing second filter processing for the processed image along a direction different from the predetermined direction. The extracted line noise image is subtracted from the image to acquire a line noise reduced image.
US08744208B2
Briefly, in accordance with one aspect, a method of binarizing an image is provided. The method includes partitioning the image into a plurality of image segments, each image segment having a plurality of image pixels and partitioning each of the image segments into subsegments, each image subsegment having a plurality of image pixels. The method also includes estimating a grey membership parameter for each image pixel for each of the plurality of image segments and subsegments, combining the grey membership parameter for each of the plurality of image pixels from each of the plurality of image segments and subsegments to estimate a net grey membership parameter for each image pixel and assigning black or white color to each of the plurality of image pixels based on the estimated net grey membership parameter of the respective pixel.
US08744206B2
Provided is an image processing apparatus including an infinite impulse response (IIR) mean value calculation section for calculating a mean value of signal values of reference pixels around a correction target pixel according to an IIR filter application process, an IIR variance value calculation section for calculating a variance value of the signal values of the reference pixels around the correction target pixel according to the IIR filter application process, an edge-preserving smoothing processing section for receiving the mean and variance values of the reference pixels and executing an edge-preserving smoothing process to which the mean and variance values are applied, and an IIR filter coefficient calculation section for updating an IIR filter coefficient to be applied to the IIR mean value calculation section and the IIR variance value calculation section according to a signal value of a pixel constituting an image.
US08744200B1
Described is a knowledge-enhanced compressive imaging system. The system first initializes a compressive measurement basis set and a measurement matrix using task- and scene-specific prior knowledge. An image captured using the imaging mode of the dual-mode sensor is then sampled to extract context knowledge. The compressive measurement basis set and the measurement matrix are adapted using the extracted context knowledge and the prior knowledge. Task-relevant compressive measurements of the image are performed using the compressive measurement mode of the dual-mode sensor, and compressive reconstruction of the image is performed. Finally, a task and context optimized signal representation of the image is generated.
US08744198B1
A computer-implemented method includes dividing an image into one or more image channels for image compression. The method also includes dividing one or more of the image channels into one or more blocks. At least one of the blocks includes floating point representations of pixel values included in the block. The method also includes converting the floating point representations of pixel values into integer representations such that the sign of each floating point representation is preserved. The method also includes storing the difference of adjacent integer representations as a compressed version of the image.
US08744195B2
A perimeter around a detected object in a frame of image data can be generated in a first coordinate system. The perimeter can be converted from the first coordinate system into a second coordinate system having the same aspect ratio as the first coordinate system. A first metadata entry can include dimensions of image data in the second coordinate system. A second metadata entry can provide a location and dimensions of the converted perimeter in the second coordinate space. Additional metadata can indicate matching objects between frames, position of an object relative to other objects in a frame, a probability that an object is correctly detected, and a total number of objects detected across multiple frames of image data.
US08744193B2
The image signature extraction device includes an extraction unit and a generation unit. The extraction unit extracts region features from respective sub-regions in an image in accordance with a plurality of pairs of sub-regions in the image, the pairs of sub-regions including at least one pair of sub-regions in which both a combination of shapes of two sub-regions of the pair and relative position between the two sub-regions of the pair differ from those of at least one of other pairs of sub-regions. The generation unit generates an image signature to be used for identifying the image based on the extracted region features of the respective sub-regions, using, for at least one pair of sub-regions, a method different from that used for another pair of sub-regions.
US08744189B2
A character region extracting apparatus and method which extract a character region through the calculation of character stroke widths are provided. The method includes producing a binary image including a candidate character region from an original image; extracting a character outline from the candidate character region; acquires character outline information for the extracted outline; setting a representative character stroke width and a representative character angle in each of the pixels forming the outline, based on the character outline information; and determining a character existing region in the candidate character region by confirming the ratio of effective representative stroke widths and effective angles as compared to the entire length of the outline. Accordingly, it is possible to efficiently determine whether one or more characters exist in the candidate character region.
US08744187B2
According to one embodiment, an image identification apparatus comprises an image pickup unit, an illumination unit, an illumination control unit and an identification unit. The image pickup unit configured to pickup an image of an identified object. The illumination unit configured to irradiate light towards the image pickup area of the image pickup unit. The illumination control unit configured to change the irradiation condition of the illumination unit in accordance with the image pickup timing of the image pickup unit. The identification unit configured to identify the identified object according to the image picked-up by the image pickup unit.
US08744182B2
The present invention relates to an image processing device and method, which realize improvement in encoding efficiency for color difference signals and reduction in address calculations for memory access.In a case where a block size of orthogonal transform is 4×4, and a macroblock of luminance signals is configured of four 4×4 pixel blocks appended with 0 through 1, the four luminance signal blocks are corresponded with one color difference signal 4×4 block appended with C. At this time, there exist four motion vector information of mv0, mv1, mv2, and mv3, as to the four luminance signal blocks. The motion vector information mvc of the one color difference signal 4×4 block is calculated by averaging processing using these four motion vector information. The present invention can be applied to an image encoding device which performed encoding based on the H.264/AVC format, for example.
US08744179B2
Provided is an image processing apparatus including an extraction unit that extracts representative colors from a target image, a color difference calculation unit that calculates a color difference between the representative color and a pixel of interest of the target image, a change unit that changes a brightness component of the color difference depending on chroma of the representative colors, and a replacement unit that selects the representative color depending on the color difference changed in the change unit to replace a color of the pixel of interest by the representative color.
US08744171B1
A page layout module receives a page image displaying text in an unknown script and unknown orientation, determines a text section in the received image and transmits the text section to an orientation and script module. The orientation and script module comprises a training module, a classifier and a recognition module. The training module trains the classifier to identify connected components that include a connected portion of one or more characters of text. The recognition module uses the trained classifier to identify in the received text section a set of connected components. The recognition determines the likely orientation and script for the connected components and then uses the determined information to determine the orientation and script for the text section. The determined orientation and script for the text section is transmitted to the OCR module. The OCR module uses the determined orientation and script to recognize text in the text section.
US08744165B2
A stain separation system of digital pathology images that performs transforming a digital image from a first color domain to an optical domain to form an optical domain image (ODI), identifying a plane containing two or more basis vector which contain the pixels of the ODI, determining a plurality of orthogonal vector within the identified plane, forming a histogram of the digital image represented by the orthogonal vectors and determining one or more final stain vectors by searching for candidate vectors in the plane that minimize a cost function of the histogram.
US08744164B2
A system and method for automatically observing and counting cells without using a stain or a fluorescent material. The system includes an optical microscope having a sensor that provides an electrical signal representative of a field of view. The microscope is motorized so as to allow automatic change of focus. A sample containing cells to be analyzed is provided. No stain or fluorescent substance is used. When the microscope is operated in a deliberately out-of-focus condition, cells appear to have either a bright or a dark spot that can be used to report the number of cells in the sample. The intensity variation detected in images acquired in different focal planes is used to identify cell shapes using image analysis software such as CellProfiler. A result is reported in any convenient format, such as a false color image.
US08744154B2
A method for acquiring image data from a patient with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. The proposed method comprises the steps of: a) predefining a number of scan geometries for acquiring the image data from at least one region of interest (ROI) relative to the patient, b) performing at least one scan for acquiring the image data in accordance with at least one of the predefined scan geometries, c) analysing in the image data a position of the region of interest to detect a deviation from the at least one predefined scan geometry, d) changing the at least one predefined scan geometry if said deviation exceeds a predetermined threshold value, and e) repeating steps b) to d) until a predetermined number of scans has been performed. Thus, by means of the proposed method the utility of such predefined scan geometries is greatly enhanced.
US08744149B2
A target-viewpoint position in a first-medical-image having multiple viewpoints is determined. Information about an anatomical structure and/or a lesion in the first-medical-image is obtained, as first information. Further, information about an anatomical structure and/or a lesion in a finding with respect to at least one second-medical-image of the same examined person as the first-medical-image, the information being related to the first information, is obtained, as second information, from image-reading-report information including the finding. Each of the at least one second-medical-image has multiple viewpoints, and was obtained at different time from the first-medical-image. The image-reading-report information is correlated with an image of a viewpoint position at which the finding was prepared. An image of a corresponding viewpoint position, which corresponds to the target-viewpoint position, is determined based on the viewpoint position of the image correlated with the image-reading-report information from which the second information has been obtained.
US08744147B2
Disclosed herein is a method for graphically representing the condition of an anatomical structure that is the subject of a medical examination. The method includes displaying a background image representative of the anatomical structure, the image including a plurality of layers corresponding to different layers of the anatomical structure, selecting a layer of the background image, presenting a plurality of symbols, each corresponding to an anatomical pathological state and selected from a group associated with the selected layer, each symbol having a plurality of parameters which determine the rendering condition of a symbol on the background, selecting one of the presented symbols, selecting an X-Y position within the selected layer and displaying the symbol on the selected layer.
US08744133B1
A method for detecting and determining a location of visible areas of change on a target object is described. The method includes locating, in position and orientation, a local positioning system with respect to the target object, determining an offset between the position and orientation of the local positioning system and a prior position and orientation of a local positioning system previously utilized to collect a set of reference images of the target object, the prior position and orientation in the coordinate system of the target object, repositioning, in position and orientation, the local positioning system with respect to the target object by the determined offset, acquiring a set of images of the target object from the position and orientation of the repositioned local positioning system, comparing the set of images to corresponding images within the set of reference images to detect a difference between the acquired images and the corresponding reference images, and determining a location of the detected difference in the coordinate system of the target object.
US08744120B2
This patent document relates generally to steganography and digital watermarking. One claim recites, in a watermark encoder, a method of encoding auxiliary information in an image or video comprising: using a programmed electronic processor, computing a change in an attribute of an image or video sample to encode auxiliary information in the image or video; and changing color values of the image or video sample to effect the change in the attribute, in which changes to color values are determined based at least in part on both: i) visibility of the changes, and ii) anticipated watermark detection. Of course, other claims are provided too.
US08744119B2
A computer alters at least one recognizable metric or text in a digitally-encoded photographic image by operating an alteration algorithm in response to user input data while preserving an overall aesthetic quality of the image and obscuring an identity of at least one individual or geographic location appearing in the image. An altered digitally-encoded photographic image prepared by the altering of the at least one recognizable metric or text in the image is stored in a computer memory. User feedback and/or automatic analysis may be performed to define parameter values of the alteration algorithm such that the alteration process achieves preservation of aesthetic qualities while obscuring an identity of interest.
US08744116B2
A bond magnet according to the present invention is anisotropic, and a magnetic field is oriented from a lowest edge of side surface of the bond magnet toward an upper section of side surface of the bond magnet. Further, the bond magnet is configured such that the upper section of side surface of the bond magnet is disposed closer to a yoke side surface of a yoke than the lower side surface of the bond magnet is, and the upper section of side surface of the bond magnet faces against the yoke side surface. With this, a magnetic gap is provided between the upper section of side surface of the bond magnet and the yoke side surface. Thus, it is possible to improve a magnetism characteristic of the bond magnet, and to achieve both of magnetic efficiency and productivity of a magnetic circuit for a speaker.
US08744112B2
Provided is an earphone capable of protecting a user's tympanic membrane, improving the durability thereof, and enjoying the further improved quality of sound by adjusting a medium-low pitched sound. In the earphone, a micro speaker mounted on a partition wall dividing an inner space is embedded in a housing. An earpiece is connected to the housing and is inserted into an external auditory canal, and a sound band adjustment unit is provided in the housing.
US08744110B2
A unidirectional dynamic microphone includes a grip housing, a microphone unit supported at a first end of the grip housing, a plug assembly attached to a second end of the grip housing and connected to the microphone unit through a lead line, and an air room serving as a part of an acoustic circuit of the microphone unit in the grip housing. The grip housing has a fitting part for the plug assembly and an expanded portion. The plug assembly fitted in the fitting part is fixed within the grip housing by an elastic ring and a pressure ring fitted in the expanded portion. The elastic ring seals a space between the grip housing and the plug assembly.
US08744109B2
A mobile computing device is disclosed. The mobile computing device comprises a first housing segment and a second housing segment that are slideably coupled to each other so that the mobile computing device can be in an extended position or a contracted position. The second housing segment includes a section that is overlaid by the first housing segment regardless of whether the mobile computing device is in the extended position or the contracted position. The mobile computing device also includes two microphones. A first microphone is provided with the second housing segment and is exposed to an opening of the second housing segment. A second microphone is provided at the overlaid section.
US08744105B2
A power management system for a digital processing core of a battery-powered hearing aid is adapted for providing power to the hearing aid circuit in a particularly efficient manner. The power management system comprises a first linear voltage regulator, and a second linear voltage regulator in series with a switched-capacitor 2:1 SC converter, a positive bulk biasing voltage supply, and a negative bulk biasing voltage supply, for controlling the switching speed, threshold voltage, and current leak from the semiconductor elements of the digital processing core when the core is operated at the reduced voltage provided by the power management system. The power management system may save between 50% and 70% of the power consumed by the digital processing core of the hearing aid circuit. The invention further provides a method for providing a supply voltage to a digital hearing aid.
US08744101B1
Systems and method for computing in-situ estimates of the overall level and incoming direction of ambient acoustical energy by combining the output signals of at least one differential directional microphone and at least one omnidirectional microphone, or, multiple differential directional microphones, at specified gains, in order to have various polar pattern estimates for acoustical energy arriving from three or more sectors about the user. In one embodiment as many as eight different sectors about the user, including the front, rear, and sides are used. In various embodiments, front, rear and/or side or portions thereof are used. Other numbers of sectors are possible without departing from the scope of the present subject matter.
US08744100B2
The user's personal intention is conveyed to a hearing aid using a method that does not place heavy physical and psychological loads. A hearing aid to be worn by a user for auditory compensation comprises: at least one microphone which converts a sound to an input signal; a hearing-aid signal processing unit configured to generate an output signal from the input signal; a receiver which outputs, as a sound, the output signal generated by the hearing-aid signal processing unit; and a hearing-aid processing control unit configured to generate control information for controlling signal processing, based on a non-audible sound which is made by the user and is hard to hear from outside, wherein, when the hearing-aid processing control unit generates the control information, the hearing-aid signal processing unit is configured to generate the output signal according to the generated control information.
US08744091B2
A communications device is configured to control the intelligibility of speech in a downlink voice signal during a call. The device determines a current noise level based on sampling ambient acoustic noise and based on a previously determined noise level. The device then determines an overall output gain and a frequency response based on the current noise level and based on a user-selected volume setting of the device. The device modifies the downlink voice signal during the call in accordance with the determined overall output gain and the determined frequency response. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
US08744086B2
A method for distributing a quantum key is provided, including sending a first photon to a first receiver; sending a second photon to a second receiver, the first and second photons being a pair of time-energy entangled photons; and providing a coding scheme comprising a plurality of time bins and a plurality of frequency bins, wherein a combination of a time bin and a frequency bin corresponds to a character.
US08744085B2
A hierarchical group key management approach based on linear geometry is disclosed. The approach includes the following steps: step 1, the central controller selects a finite field F, a mapping parameter f and a constant N for use in the group; the central controller selects a N-dimensional private vector for each subgroup; step 2, the central controller selects a mapping parameter r and maps the private vector to a new set of vectors in the vector space; step 3, the central controller selects a subgroup key for each subgroup and constructs n linear systems of equations, and solves the solution of the linear equation systems, that is, the public vector, and the n sets of public vectors form a public vector; the public vector and the mapping parameter r are broadcasted or multicasted by the central controller to all the subgroup controllers; step 4, each subgroup controller solves the confidential vector of its own, and a set of key vectors is obtained by linear transformation of the confidential vector and the public matrix. This invention is simple and flexible, and is effective against brute-force attacks.
US08744078B2
A system and method for securing data and information is disclosed. Multiple cryptographic paradigms may be applied to multiple length data segments to encrypt such data to prevent unauthorized use. The system and method uses pattern keys. At least one pattern key uses a cryptographic paradigm different from the other pattern keys. Furthermore, each pattern key has a given key strength and at least one pattern keys key strength differs from the one or more other pattern keys used in the process. The pattern keys are applied to the data in accordance with a key pattern which defines the sequence that each pattern key is applied to the data. The length of each data segment may vary one from the other and such segment length is determined in accordance with the pattern key applied. In addition, the initial plaintext data may first be encrypted using a first password before the disclosed process is implemented.
US08744075B2
Provided is a key generation apparatus that generates, based on a generated random number, quantum gates Ui, L and R corresponding respectively to m types of unitary operations Ui corresponding to n qubits and two types of unitary operations L and R corresponding to m qubits, generates a quantum gate CU whose control is enabled such that operation of the quantum gate Ui is controlled according to an input state of the m qubits, generates a quantum gate G by adding the quantum gates L and R to the quantum gate CU, generates a public key P by obfuscating the quantum gate G, generates a quantum gate CU† and a quantum gate R*, and generates a private key S by connecting the quantum gate CU† and the quantum gate R*.
US08744069B2
By-bandwidth voice-switching is performed during doubletalk between a near-end teleconference device and a far-end teleconference device. This may involve receiving far-end voice data from the far-end teleconference device. Near-end voice data is also received at the near-end teleconference device. Frequency subbands of the near-end voice data that having substantial energy are identified. Before playing the far-end voice data on one or more loudspeakers of the near-end teleconference device, frequency subbands from the far-end voice data frequency subbands thereof that correspond to the identified frequency subbands of the near-end voice data are attenuated and/or eliminated.
US08744065B2
A method and system for concurrently monitoring contact center agents. A user interface executes on a supervisor station and displays multiple agent identifiers, including a first agent identifier and a second agent identifier, on a display device. The supervisor station provides to a three-dimensional spatial audio engine (3DSAE) first audio attribute data identifying a location of the first agent identifier in the user interface with respect to a supervisor reference position, the first audio attribute data including first audio direction data and first audio distance data. The supervisor station receives from the 3DSAE first voice signals corresponding to the first agent identifier, wherein the first voice signals include aural characteristics based on the first audio attribute data, and presents the first voice signals to an output port.
US08744062B2
A method and system for providing automated call center services, operating by identifying a caller, accessing the caller's account information, determining the likely reason for the call, identifying an agent skill group based on the likely reason for the call, and providing an available agent with access to the caller's account information, together with a script based on the likely reason for the call. Data and voice access to agents is combined with specialized methods and systems for determining agent optimization capabilities, thereby allowing multiple call centers located in geographically different areas to operate as a seamless virtual call center, having the capability to dynamically reorganize the structure of available agents, regardless of where located. Real time statistics allow determination of how many agents should be available and what skill sets those agents should have, thereby facilitating management decisions.
US08744061B2
The present invention provides flexible, user-definable call screening processes. The user can optionally define to which telecommunication terminals a screened call is to be broadcast to and under what conditions. An incoming call is forwarded to a call management system that asks the caller to leave a voice message. The call management system selectively couples the call to a POTS line or a VoIP-capable device so that the user can listen to the incoming message and thereby screen the incoming call. Based on the screening, the user can instruct the call management system to connect the caller to the user.
US08744054B2
Methods and systems for reestablishing voice communications in the event of a service interruption. The method comprises establishing a call session with a user via a communication device, storing call state and bridge information associated with the call session, determining that the call session has been disconnected, and maintaining the call state and bridge information associated with the call session and redialing for the disconnected user. The method may further include providing an audio message to other call participants.
US08744046B2
Provided are a method and an apparatus of precisely measuring the intensity profile of an x-ray nanobeam, which can measure x-rays having different wavelengths with one knife edge and can perform optimal measurements corresponding to the depth of focus of an x-ray beam and the conditions of other measurement devices, using a dark field measurement method which enables precise measurements of the profile of an x-ray beam using a knife edge and using diffracted and transmitted x-rays. The knife edge (4) is formed of a heavy metal which advances the phase of an x-ray passing therethrough and is fabricated in such a manner that the thickness may change in the longitudinal direction continuously or in a stepwise fashion. The knife edge (4) is so set that an x-ray beam may traverse the knife edge (4) at such a thickness position as to achieve a phase shift in a range wherein a transmitted x-ray and a diffracted x-ray diffracted at the end of the knife edge may reinforce each other, and a superposed x-ray of the diffracted x-ray and the transmitted x-ray is measured by an x-ray detector.
US08744044B2
An X-ray imaging apparatus includes an X-ray irradiation unit which irradiates X-rays, a detection unit which detects the X-rays transmitted through an object, and a housing which contains the detection unit. The housing includes a first housing in which an X-ray transmission member which transmits the X-rays is placed in an incident range of the X-rays irradiated from the X-ray irradiation unit; a second housing which supports the detection unit while being spaced apart from the X-ray transmission member on an opposite side to an incident side on which the X-rays strike the X-ray transmission member; and a plurality of connecting members which connect the first housing to the second housing.
US08744038B2
A shift register circuit including a logic circuit capable of controlling the threshold voltage of a transistor and outputting a signal corresponding to an input signal by changing only the potential of a back gate without changing the potential of a gate is provided. In a shift register circuit including a logic circuit with a first transistor and a second transistor having the same conductivity type, a first gate electrode of the first transistor is connected to a source electrode or a drain electrode of the first transistor, an input signal is supplied to a second gate electrode of the first transistor, a clock signal is supplied to a gate electrode of the second transistor, and the first gate electrode and the gate electrode are formed from the same layer.
US08744034B2
A boiling water reactor has a reactor pressure vessel and a through piping. The reactor pressure vessel includes a main body trunk and an openable upper lid covering an upper open end of the main body trunk from above. The through piping penetrates lateral side of the main body trunk and has an opening section at a same level with or higher than the upper open end of the main body trunk in the reactor pressure vessel. The through piping may be connected to the sump arranged outside the reactor pressure vessel in the dry well. The through piping may be further connected to the suppression pool in the wet well and/or to the water level gauge in the dry well.
US08744029B2
A data stream monitor includes an analog front end (AFE) and a digital state machine. The AFE receives recovered clock and data signals at a first rate. The AFE uses the recovered clock and a phase interpolator to generate a phase-adjusted clock signal at a second rate slower than the first rate. The AFE uses a detector operating with the phase-adjusted clock signal to generate a representation of the data signal generated from comparisons of the data signal with two reference voltages. A logical combination of the results from the comparisons generates a signal that identifies when the data signal voltage is near the common-mode voltage. The digital state machine generates a strobe signal at a third rate slower than the second rate. The strobe signal is used by the AFE to sample the signal. The sample is forwarded to the digital state machine where it is stored.
US08744022B2
A basic idea is to determine (S1) occurrence of a glitch caused by operation of the AGC mechanism, identify (S2) those modulation symbols in a digitized version of the received signal that are affected by the glitch, each modulation symbol represented by a number of bits in combination, and then reduce (S3), for each of the identified modulation symbols, the contribution in representing the identified modulation symbol as provided by at least a subset of the bits of the modulation symbol. In this way, the adverse effects of the glitch can be effectively mitigated and subsequent detection of the desired signal can be significantly improved. This also means that the link performance will be significantly improved.
US08744017B2
A method and system for demapping a hierarchical signal is disclosed. The method includes receiving a hierarchical signal comprising first and second encoded, modulated signals. A conditional probability relating to the structure of the second encoded, modulated signal is determined. The hierarchical signal is demodulated using the conditional probability to generate a first encoded data stream. The first encoded data stream is decoded to recover information bits.
US08744016B2
A receiving apparatus includes a symbol timing detection unit, a Fourier transform unit, a first symbol timing correction unit, and an interpolation synthesis unit. The symbol timing detection unit is configured to detect a Fourier transform start position from a received transmitting signal of a symbol unit, the Fourier transform unit is configured to perform a Fourier transform using the detected Fourier transform start position. The first symbol timing correction unit is configured to calculate and correct an amount of change between the Fourier transform start position of a reference symbol and the detected Fourier transform start position, and the interpolation synthesis unit is configured to perform an interpolation synthesis of a plurality of delay profiles corresponding to a plurality of symbols including the reference symbol and a symbol in which the amount of change is corrected.
US08744015B2
Methods, devices and systems for sensor-based wireless communication systems using compressive sampling are provided. In one embodiment, the method for sampling signals comprises receiving, over a wireless channel, a user equipment transmission based on an S-sparse combination of a set of vectors; down converting and discretizing the received transmission to create a discretized signal; correlating the discretized signal with a set of sense waveforms to create a set of samples, wherein a total number of samples in the set is equal to a total number of sense waveforms in the set, wherein the set of sense waveforms does not match the set of vectors, and wherein the total number of sense waveforms in the set of sense waveforms is fewer than a total number of vectors in the set of vectors; and transmitting at least one sample of the set of samples to a remote central processor.
US08744009B2
A communication system is provided that includes a transmitter device and a receiver device. The transmitter device transmits input data as a transmitted signal having the known non-linear distortion (NLD) characteristic. The receiver receives a received signal that represents a channel affected version of the transmitted signal and that has the known NLD characteristic. The received signal includes power amplifier distortion (PAD) induced by the transmitter device's power amplifier. The receiver is designed to iteratively estimate, based on the known NLD characteristic, remaining PAD caused by the power amplifier, and to iteratively cancel estimated PAD to reduce PAD in the received signal.
US08744001B2
Provided is a multimode transmitter apparatus that, in a case of using different paths to process modulated signals, can suppress the signal overlapping or loss that would occur during a path switching. In the apparatus, a baseband modulating unit (110), which supports a plurality of modulation schemes using different modulation bandwidths, outputs either first modulated signals or second modulated signals. An LPF (130-1) and an LPF (130-2), which have delay amounts Δtd1 and Δtd2, perform signal processings of the first and second modulated signals, respectively. A timing control unit (160) sets the modulation schemes and the switching timings of the modulation schemes. The timing control unit (160) sets, on the basis of the switching timings and the delay amounts Δtd1 and Δtd2, the switching timings of a modulated signal selecting switch (120) and a signal processing delay adjusting switch (140) to be different from each other.
US08743999B2
The present invention provides a digital signal processor, a communication system comprising such a digital signal processor and a method for operating such a digital signal processor. The digital signal processor for a communication system in an aircraft cabin of an aircraft comprises a provision means for providing a predeterminable digital signal suitable for forming a respective wave form for mapping a respective pre-determined service signal and a pre-determined noise signal.
US08743997B2
A method and system are described for adaptively adjusting data communication of a rateless coding system, including adaptively estimating a symbol coding length, determining a symbol threshold, determining if the adaptively estimated symbol coding length is less than the symbol threshold, adjusting a transmission power level based on the second determining act and adaptively adjusting a modulation scheme based on the second determining act. Also described are a method and system for decoding communication of a rateless coding system, including receiving encoded symbols, determining if a length of the received encoded symbols is greater than a threshold number of encoded symbols and decoding the received encoded symbols if the length of the received encoded symbols is greater than the threshold number of encoded symbols.
US08743995B2
Channel gain information is utilized for determining linear, or non-linear, combinations of transmitted symbols to increase symbol throughput. The base station recombines symbols directed to different receivers in response to the channel gain information. Channel gain information, which is subject to delay, has been previously utilized merely for predicting current channel gains prior at the time of transmission. The present invention, however, utilizes the channel gain information to increase coding efficiency even when the channel gain information is not utilized for predicting current channel gains. The method, apparatus and systems of the invention are applicable to any configuration of multiple wireless transmission to multiple receivers.
US08743988B2
Conventional mode adaptation does not account for the gain imbalance between channels for measurement and for data reception. Therefore, the precoder, which is selected based on the measurement channel, may not be the optimal precoder for the data reception channel. By maintaining relative SINR ordering between transmission modes, a receiver may select the transmission mode for a transmitter that maximizes the actual throughput even in the presence of inter-antenna gain increase or decrease.
US08743981B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a modulation method and apparatus. The modulation method includes: processing at least two data blocks, and outputting at least two single-carrier Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) signals, where the at least two data blocks include a first data block and a second data block, the at least two single-carrier OFDM signals include a first single-carrier OFDM signal corresponding to the first data block and a second single-carrier OFDM signal corresponding to the second data block, a difference between a carrier center frequency RF1 of the first single-carrier OFDM signal and a carrier center frequency RF2 of the second single-carrier OFDM signal is an integral multiple of an F0, and the F0 is a subcarrier bandwidth; and transmitting the at least two single-carrier OFDM signals.
US08743978B2
A method is provided for transmitting a multiple-carrier signal. The method includes modulating data symbols representative of a data signal to be transmitted, which includes a filtering by at least one prototype function using at least two different filtering coefficients, thus providing a modulated signal including a time sequence of multiple-carrier symbols. A hold interval is inserted in front of at least one multiple-carrier symbol of the modulated signal, thus providing the multiple-carrier signal.
US08743977B2
Techniques for the reception and processing of wireless signals are disclosed. For instance, an apparatus may include a first hardware module (e.g., a mixed signal module) and a second hardware module (e.g., a digital signal module). The first hardware module may convert an analog signal corresponding to a received wireless signal into a digital signal having a first sampling rate. In turn, channel filtering may be performed on this digital signal. Following this, the filtered digital signal may be resampled from the first sampling rate to a second sampling rate. At this point, the resampled signal may be transferred across an interface from the first hardware module to the second hardware module. Upon receipt, the second hardware module may correct a sampling rate error in the second sampling rate, and demodulate the digital signal into one or more symbols.
US08743970B2
A system and method of decoding input video information is disclosed which includes performing error detection for each video block of a frame, determining whether a scene change occurs for the frame, and when an error is detected in a video block, performing spatial concealment by concealing error of the erroneous video block using neighboring video information within the frame when the erroneous video block is intraframe encoded or when a scene change is detected for the frame, or performing temporal concealment by replacing the erroneous video block with a reference video block from a reference frame when the erroneous video block is interframe encoded and when a scene change is not detected for the frame. The method may further include detecting false frames based on comparing current and new frame number and picture order count values of a new slice.
US08743967B2
A video decoder includes an entropy decoding device that generates entropy decoded (EDC) data from an encoded video signal. A multi-format video decoding device includes a plurality of vector processor units that generate a decoded video signal from the EDC data. The plurality of vector processing units are programmed via VPU instructions formatted to include a vector instruction portion, a scalar instruction portion, and a branching instruction portion.
US08743962B2
An embodiment of the invention relates to a method for providing a compressed video bitstream related to consecutive pictures of a video sequence, wherein the pictures are defined by pixels, said method comprising the steps of: (a) applying at least one higher-order motion model to a motion vector field and generating at least one higher-order motion parameter set for said motion vector field, wherein said motion vector field comprises a plurality of first motion vectors, each first motion vector being assigned to a pixel block and describing the local displacement of the pixel block from the preceding picture to the consecutive picture, and wherein each pixel block comprises a plurality of pixels; (b) calculating a second motion vector for each pixel block based on the higher-order motion parameter set; (c) calculating the deviation between the first motion vector and the second motion vector for each pixel block; and (d) generating a video bitstream comprising the higher-order motion parameter set, and for each pixel block an information which indicates or is based on the deviation calculated in step (c).
US08743961B2
To code a video sequence, the similarity is calculated (10) between a block of pixels to code of a current image of the sequence and blocks of pixels of a reference image and at least one motion vector per block of the sequence is determined on the basis of at least one similarity value calculated previously. Furthermore, for at least one block of pixels to code, a prediction (16) is determined of at least one motion vector from neighboring motion vectors that have already been calculated; a final motion vector is determined (18) from similarity values calculated previously for the block to code and on the basis of the predicted motion vector; and the block to code is coded (20) using the final motion vector.
US08743941B2
The present invention describes a channel equalizer and a method for channel equalization in a receiver in a multi-user communication system. The method comprises the steps of receiving a signal with at least two antennas to produce at least two antenna input streams, measuring the temporal of each antenna input stream and the spatial correlation between the antenna input streams, determining a user-independent pre-equalization filter from the temporal and spatial correlation, filtering the antenna input streams with the pre-equalization filter, and finally inputting the filtered signal to a user-dependent receiver configured to detect the received data symbols of a given user.
US08743938B2
A modem or associated computing or testing device is configured to detect the presence of one or more faults that affect DSL communications, and upon their detection, generate, for example, an indication, communication or message that recommends corrective action. In this context, a fault is generally caused by one or more unfiltered devices, impulsive noises, malfunctioning modems, or other factor that does not affect measured attenuation or measured noise, but does affect the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the link. In addition to being able to generate a message guiding a user through corrective action, the system can estimate the rate impact of the detected fault.
US08743936B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for estimating noise components in a received signal set. For example, one embodiment of the present invention provides a noise estimation circuit that includes a data detector circuit and a noise component calculation circuit. The data detector circuit receives a series of data samples and provides a detected output, and the noise component calculation circuit provides an electronics noise power output and a media noise power output each calculated based at least in part on the detected output and the series of data samples.
US08743932B2
A discrete multitone transceiver (DMT) includes a deinterleaver operable to de-interleave a plurality of bits. The DMT further includes: a forward error correction decoder operable to decode the plurality of bits, a module operable to determine, during Showtime, an impulse noise protection value, wherein the impulse protection value specifies a number corrupted DMT symbols that can be corrected by the forward error correction decoder in combination with the deinterleaver, and a receiver coupled to the deinterleaver. The receiver receives using a first interleaver parameter value, receives a flag signal, and changes to receiving using a second interleaver parameter value that is different than the first interleaver parameter value, wherein the second interleaver parameter value is used for reception on a pre-defined forward error correction codeword boundary following reception of the flag signal.
US08743931B2
Upon detection of a trigger, such as the exceeding of an error threshold or the direction of a user, a diagnostic link system enters a diagnostic information transmission mode. This diagnostic information transmission mode allows for two modems to exchange diagnostic and/or test information that may not otherwise be exchangeable during normal communication. The diagnostic information transmission mode is initiated by transmitting an initiate diagnostic link mode message to a receiving modem accompanied by a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The receiving modem determines, based on the CRC, if a robust communications channel is present. If a robust communications channel is present, the two modems can initiate exchange of the diagnostic and/or test information. Otherwise, the transmission power of the transmitting modem is increased and the initiate diagnostic link mode message re-transmitted to the receiving modem until the CRC is determined to be correct.
US08743930B2
Various embodiments are directed towards suppressing inter-cell and intra-cell interference. In some embodiments, an intra-cell interference signal for a specified rake finger is received. An inter-cell interference signal is received. The intra-cell interference signals upstream of a chip-level equalizer are suppressed. The inter-cell interference signals upstream of the chip-level equalizer are suppressed.
US08743916B2
A plane waveguide type laser includes: a plate-shaped laser medium; a semiconductor laser which causes excitation light to enter an end surface of the laser medium; first and second claddings which are bonded to lower and upper surfaces of the laser medium, respectively, to form a waveguide in a vertical direction; a comb heat sink bonded to a lower surface of the first cladding; and a thermal lens producing portion bonded to an upper surface of the second cladding. In this structure, laser oscillation in the vertical direction is performed in a waveguide mode of the laser medium, and the thermal lens producing portion forms a periodic lens effect in the laser medium to perform laser oscillation in a lateral direction in a plurality of resonant modes.
US08743914B1
An analog beamforming receiver may include a first receive element coupled with circuitry for sequentially adjusting at least one of a phase or a gain of a signal. The analog beamforming receiver may also include a second receive element coupled with circuitry for sequentially adjusting at least one of a phase or a gain of the signal. The analog beamforming receiver may further include a combiner coupled with the first receive element and the second receive element for combining the phase or gain adjusted signals to form a combined analog signal. The analog beamforming receiver may also include an analog to digital converter coupled with the combiner for converting the combined analog signal into digital samples. The analog beamforming receiver may further include a demultiplexer coupled with the analog to digital converter for demultiplexing the digital samples from the analog to digital converter into a plurality of demultiplexed signals.
US08743909B2
Techniques to increase capacity in a wireless communications system. In an aspect, systematic non-transmission, or “blanking,” of minimal-rate frames transmitted in a communications system is provided. In an exemplary embodiment, eighth rate frames in a cdma2000 voice communications system are systematically substituted with null-rate frames carrying zero traffic bits. Provisions are nevertheless made for the transmission of certain designated as “critical” by, e.g., a vocoder. The receiver detects the presence of null rate or non-null rate transmissions and processes the received frames accordingly, including updating an outer loop power control only in response to non-null rate frames. Further techniques for changing the pilot transmission gating pattern to assist the receiver in detecting null rate frames are provided. In another aspect, early termination of a signal transmission over a wireless communications link is provided. In an exemplary embodiment, a base station (BS) transmits power control groups (PCG's) for a frame over a forward link (FL) to a mobile station (MS) until accurate reception of the frame is acknowledged by the MS over a reverse link (RL), possibly before all PCG's of the frame are received over the FL. Possible ACK signaling methods are defined for channels associated with a cdma2000 wireless communications system. In another exemplary embodiment, techniques for reverse link early termination are also provided.
US08743908B2
Communication devices, such as base nodes and modems, that comply with two or more different standards operate on a shared communication channel. To avoid mutual interference, a base node operating under a first standard reserves time using a contention free period designation. The base node allows devices operating under a second standard to communicate during the reserved time by not assigning the contention free period to another device operating under the first standard. Alternatively, a device using the first standard may avoid interference from transmissions generated under the second standard by modifying data packets prior to transmission. A prefix corresponding to a preamble in the second standard is added to the beginning of the data packet created under the first standard. Devices operating under the second standard observe the prefix and recognize that the channel is active. The second-standard devices backoff from transmission thereby minimizing interference.
US08743903B2
A simple connect setup function for hybrid networks is provided that allows a user to add devices optionally having a number of different network interfaces (e.g., that facilitate communications using different network technologies or protocols) to a hybrid network in a single, simplified operation that alleviates the need for the user to individually connect and/or configure a multitude of different network interfaces. The simple connect setup function also alleviates the need for the user to know on which devices the simple connect setup function must be activated for successful simple connect setup.
US08743897B2
The processing of a multicast service flow for a headend cable modem by classifying an inputted multicast packet by a session composing an internal header including multicast service flow information allocated to the classified session and then outputting an internal multicast packet including the internal header.
US08743893B2
Internet data such as Border Gateway Protocol routing information and traceroute measurements are processed to create realistic predictive models of the paths IP traffic is likely to take between any two points on the Internet, even when direct measurements of the paths is not feasible. The prediction includes three categories: topology (what paths may exist), weighting (which paths are more or less likely to be taken under varying operational circumstances), and performance (latency, loss, jitter, etc. across the predicted paths).
US08743886B2
In one embodiment, a method includes establishing in a Virtual Private Local Area Network (LAN) Service (VPLS) over Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network a floating pseudowire between a first provider edge router and a redundancy group having a plurality of provider edge routers each configured to forward data toward a external device. Each provider edge router in the redundancy group is configured to maintain an active link to the external device. A provider edge router that is not a member of the redundancy group sends data directed to the external device through the floating pseudowire. Only one provider edge router in the redundancy group receives and forwards the particular data to the external device.
US08743884B2
A method and apparatus according to one embodiment of the invention are operable to detect the accumulation of redundant ACKs (acknowledgment signals) in a queue for streaming data packet units, and to delete a portion of the redundant ACKs to improve transmission efficiencies. In one embodiment, only the most relevant ACK is kept before the ACKs are processed for transmission. In an alternate embodiment, a ratio of defined that limits the maximum number of redundant ACKs that may be deleted. This ratio is based upon a transmission window size. The teachings of the present disclosure may also be applied to flow control in a more general sense in which a plurality of redundant signals responses are being transmitted after being aggregated.
US08743879B2
A network element is described. In one embodiment includes receiving a packet from the host in the first domain at the network element in the first domain, the packet including a destination address to the host in the second domain, the destination address being formed by replacing an Interface Identifier of an IP address by a second domain label and a shortened Media Access Control (MAC) address, the second domain label identifying the second domain. A routing label and the shortened MAC address are attached to the received packet, and the packet is sent on a label switched path indicated by the label to the second domain.
US08743874B2
A method of transmitting data in a transmitting stage is disclosed. The present invention includes configuring a MAC PDU (medium access control protocol data unit) including fragmented data and a fragmentation extended header (FEH) and a packing extended header (PEH) for transmitting the fragmented data and transmitting the configured MAC PDU to a receiving stage. Preferably, the FEH or the PEH includes an extended header type field indicating a type of an extended header and a fragmentation control field including information on the fragmented data.
US08743866B2
In one embodiment, a node in a computer network represented by a directed acyclic graph (DAG) may receive advertisements of smoothed path costs to a root node of the DAG, where the advertisements contain a field for a virtual gain factor (VGF) indicative of a difference between the smoothed path cost and an actual best path cost to the root. The node may then determine a local smoothed path cost from itself to the root, and also a local VGF for each link of the node (for the path as a whole including the particular link) based on all of the received advertisements and VGFs, as well as corresponding actual link costs (e.g., based on selecting alternative parents or actual link costs being smoothed within a dual threshold). The node may then compute a resulting smoothed path cost to the root along with an associated (cumulative) VGF based on the locally determined cost and VGF. Accordingly, the node may then advertise the resulting smoothed path cost along with the associated (cumulative) VGF on each link such that, for example, any node receiving a resulting smoothed path cost and/or VGF that surpasses a threshold may request a rebuild of the DAG (e.g., a portion or in its entirety).
US08743861B2
A control scheme using packet headers allows GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN) systems to increase spectral efficiency through multiplexing techniques, such as superposition coding, multi-user packet transmission, joint detection, and/or joint decoding. A fast feedback scheme for GERAN allows Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) frames to be transmitted over GERAN air interfaces without excessive feedback latency. As a result, Hybrid Automatic Repeat-reQuest (H-ARQ) acknowledgements may be timely provided for end-to-end VoIP calls that traverse GERAN air interfaces. Additionally, Incremental Redundancy H-ARQ and link quality feedback latencies are decreased.
US08743852B2
A wireless electronic device having first and second baseband processors is provided. In one suitable arrangement, radio-frequency power splitters and adjustable low noise amplifiers may be form in the receive paths. The use of power splitters allow signals associated with the first and second baseband processors to be received in parallel. In another suitable arrangement, radio-frequency switches are used in place of the power splitters. The states of the switches may be controlled using at least one of the first and second baseband processors. The use of switches instead of power splitters requires that wake periods associated with the first baseband processor and wake periods associated with the second baseband processor are non-overlapping. To ensure minimal wake period collision, a wake period associated with the second baseband processor may be positioned at a midpoint between two successive wake periods associated with the first baseband processor.
US08743844B2
Provided are an apparatus and a method for setting time information of an area in which a portable terminal, used in an asynchronous mobile communication system, is positioned. The apparatus includes a communicator for transmitting a time information setup request message to a Base Station (BS) and receiving a time information setup complete information from the BS, and a controller for generating the time information setup request message by changing a message type of a Mobility Management (MM) information message and setting the time information of the portable terminal using the time information setup complete message.
US08743842B2
A system that incorporates teachings of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a method for analyzing a wide frequency band with respect to signal power levels in specified narrow frequency bands, detecting narrow band signal power levels received in the specified narrow frequency bands, determining an average composite wideband power level from the narrow band signal power levels, determining an adaptive threshold, scanning a known narrow band channel of the wide frequency band having a history of causing interference in the wide frequency band, and detecting according to one of the adaptive threshold, the average composite wideband power level, or both, interference in the wide frequency band caused by signals transmitted in the known narrow band channel. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US08743839B2
The invention relates to a method in a radio base station (110) of a radio telecommunications network (100), wherein the radio base station (110) comprises at least two different types of receivers; a first type of receivers and a second type of receivers. The first type of receivers comprises a different receiving sensitivity than the second type of receivers. The method is for scheduling a first type of receiver to a user equipment (120) within a radio cell (115) served by the radio base station (110). The radio base station determines a distance (125) between the user equipment (120) and a radio cell boundary (127) of the radio cell (115), and schedules the first type of receiver to the user equipment (120) when the distance is determined to be within a distance range.
US08743838B2
Embodiments of a millimeter-wave communication station and method for scheduling association beamforming training (A-BFT) with collision avoidance are generally described herein. In some embodiments an initiating station transmits a transmit sector-sweep frame in each of its antenna sectors and receives a reverse transmit sector-sweep frame from two or more unassociated responding stations. The initiating station transmits a sector-sweep feedback frame to each of the responding stations to indicate whether each responding station is to perform beamforming training in a current beacon interval or a subsequent beacon interval. The sector-sweep feedback frame may indicate an order in which the responding stations are to perform beamforming training in subsequent beacon intervals.
US08743834B2
According to embodiments, a base station includes a radio communication unit configured to establish communication with a mobile communication terminal using a plurality of component carriers. The base station further includes a control unit configured to transmit a command to the mobile communication terminal to reduce the plurality of component carriers to one prior to handover of communication between the mobile communication terminal and the base station to another base station.
US08743827B2
A switching method and apparatus in a broadband wireless communication system is provided. A method of an Advanced Base Station (ABS) for a Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) in the broadband wireless communication system includes transmitting to an Advanced Mobile Station (AMS) a message including identification information for a primary carrier that provides the MBS among multiple carriers supported by the ABS, switching to the primary carrier with respect to the AMS, and transmitting MBS data through the primary carrier.
US08743825B2
A method for handover is disclosed. The method comprises generation of mobility information that associates with a mobile device attached to a first access node. The mobility information is then communicated to a second access node for use in a handover of the mobile device from the first access node to the second access node.
US08743824B2
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and discloses a method and apparatus for transmitting/receiving a signal in a wireless communication system that supports multi-user MIMO transmission. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method in which a mobile station receives a signal in a wireless communication system that supports multi-user MIMO transmission, comprises: a step of receiving information on the entirety of the transmission rank of the multi-user MIMO transmission; a step of receiving a reference signal and data for demodulation for the mobile station on the basis of the information on the entirety of the transmission rank; a step of acquiring channel information on the mobile station from the reference signal for demodulation; and a step of demodulating said data on the basis of the acquired channel information.
US08743817B2
A radio communication system is disclosed. The method for transmitting a signal by a user equipment in a radio communication system includes generating a plurality of uplink signals, reducing maximum transmit power of the user equipment in consideration of a signal configuration for the plurality of uplink signals, and transmitting the plurality of uplink signals to a network within the range of the reduced maximum transmit power of the user equipment.
US08743815B2
An SA-Preamble corresponding to an irregular system bandwidth different from a regular system bandwidth is configured to be as long as or larger than the irregular system bandwidth and transmitted. Thus, the performance of transmitting and receiving the SA-Preamble is increased.
US08743814B2
A method and an apparatus are provided for transmitting a scheduling request signal of a terminal in a mobile communication system. If a Buffer Status Report (BSR) is triggered, it is checked whether the BSR is canceled. If the BSR is not cancelled, a Scheduling Request (SR) is triggered for requesting resources for transmitting the BSR.
US08743807B2
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more specifically, to a method and an apparatus for transmitting an RS (Reference Signal) from a transmission end. The present invention relates to an RS transmission method and an apparatus therefore, comprising the steps of: confirming RS resources which are defined according to each layer; and transmitting the precoded RS for the layers to a receiving end through a multiple antenna, wherein the RS resource includes a 1st index for indicating an RS resource pattern group in which the precoded RS is mapped within a resource block and a 2nd index for indicating a code resource for multiplexing the precoded RSs within the RS resource pattern group.
US08743788B2
The present invention relates to a method for sending and receiving a reference signal for a backhaul subframe in a wireless communication system in which a relay is present and also to a device therefor, constituted in such a way that common reference signals for a plurality of receiving devices and reference signals dedicated to separate receiving devices are allocated dispersed in a subframe, and the common reference signals and the dedicated reference signals are generated and are sent and received via the subframe. The present invention can improve the channel estimation performance for subframes in a wireless communication system. In this way, communications efficiency in wireless communication systems can be improved.
US08743787B2
In a wireless network supporting aggregation of uplink component carriers, sounding reference signals, SRS, are transmitted (62) on an uplink, UL, primary component carrier. An activation command corresponding to an UL secondary component carrier, SCC, is received (64), in response to which the receiving transceiver determines (65) whether it has valid timing information for the UL SCC, wherein valid timing information for the UL SCC indicates that the UL SCC is UL synchronized. In response to this determination, transmission of SRS on the UL SCC is enabled (66) if the UL SCC is synchronized, when SRS is configured for the UL SCC. Otherwise, transmission of SRS on the UL SCC is prohibited (68) until the UL SCC is UL synchronized.
US08743776B2
System(s) and method(s) are provided for a femto cell service framework for purchase of femtocell equipment and service and customer support thereof. A point of sale (POS) platform enables purchase of femtocell equipment based on a set of eligibility criteria. POS also allows purchase of add-on services. Direct fulfillment and post-sale transactions such as returns and equipment replacement are also provided. An account management service enables femtocell equipment and service self-care or through customer representatives. Configuration of service account and monitoring of account status is provided. Customer care architecture also enables remote troubleshooting of purchased equipment. Remote troubleshooting includes diagnosis and related manipulation of purchased equipment.
US08743759B2
Method and apparatus for validating location information associated with an access point (AP) in a wireless local area network (WLAN) by subjecting neighborhood node proximity information retrieved from an AP and neighborhood node location information retrieved from a database to a likelihood ratio tests (LRT). The neighborhood node proximity information retrieved from an AP comprises a list of nodes exhibiting at the AP a signal strength above a threshold level T, or link quality information associated with those nodes having a signal received by the AP.
US08743755B2
The present invention provides a downlink resource scheduling method and a transmission end for a multiple-input multiple-output beam-forming (MIMO+BF) system. The transmission end performs the following steps of: dividing subordinate users into user groups according to respective MIMO+BF weights of the subordinate users; generating a scheduling priority coefficient for each of the user groups according to scheduling priority coefficients of respective users in the user group; allocating group resources to the user groups according to the respective scheduling priority coefficients of the user groups; and allocating sub-channel resources of the group resources to each user in the user groups according to the respective scheduling priority coefficients of users in the user groups.
US08743749B2
A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided in which it is determined, by a first device, if a transmission using a second frequency band to a second device will result in a parameter exceeding a threshold value, and content is either transmitted using a first frequency band upon a determination that the transmission to the second device will result in the parameter exceeding the threshold, or transmitted using the first frequency band and a second frequency band upon a determination that the transmission to the second device will result in the parameter not exceeding the threshold, wherein the first and second frequency bands are different.
US08743744B2
A method and an apparatus for multiplexing an antenna element, and an antenna component can reduce power loss caused by multiplexing of the antenna element. The apparatus includes an antenna element, a filter, and a DUP. The antenna element is connected to the filter and the DUP separately, and a suppression band of the filter includes a bandpass band of the DUP. The filter is configured to filter the signals sent by the antenna element and the DUP and/or the signals to be sent to the antenna element and the DUP to make signals of a first band pass through. The DUP is configured to filter the signals sent by the antenna element and the filter and/or the signals to be sent to the antenna element and the filter to make signals of a second band pass through.
US08743740B2
Methods and apparatus to implement a partial mesh virtual private local area network service are disclosed. An example method to implement a partial mesh virtual private local area network service (VPLS) network disclosed herein comprises identifying a desired partial mesh topology of connections for interconnecting a plurality of provider edge devices comprising the VPLS network, and decomposing the partial mesh topology into a plurality of cliques, wherein each clique comprises a respective full mesh topology of connections for interconnecting a respective subset of the plurality of provider edge devices, and wherein a union of the plurality of cliques implements the desired partial mesh topology.
US08743736B2
The connectivity information provided by a variety of inference engines is integrated to provide a set of inferred links within a network. A consolidation is performed among inference engines that operate at a base level of connectivity detail to create a model of the network at this base level. The connectivity information provided by inference engines at each subsequent higher level of connectivity abstraction is then overlaid on the base level connectivity. By separately consolidating the connectivity information at each level of abstraction, the rules for dealing with conflicts can be simplified and/or better focused to resolve the conflict. By assuming that the more detailed lower level information is likely to be more accurate, rules can be developed to modify the connectivity models produced by the higher level techniques to conform to the lower level connectivity details while still maintaining the integrity of the higher level connectivity models.
US08743734B2
Technology for configuring component carriers in carrier aggregation is disclosed. One method comprises scanning for an enhanced Node B (eNode B) with a user equipment (UE). An eNode B is selected by the UE. The UE is attached to an available carrier provided by the eNode B. The available carrier is designated as a Primary Component Carrier (PCC). The PCC is configured as a component carrier pair comprising a downlink primary component carrier (DL PCC) and an uplink primary component carrier (UL PCC). Mobility management and security input information is received at the UE from the eNode B via the DL PCC and the UL PCC.
US08743733B2
A switching chassis includes more than one cascade unit and more than one switching unit, where: the cascade units have cascade interfaces to connect line processing chassis; the switching units have switching ports to connect the cascade interfaces; and any cascade interface of any cascade unit is connected to one switching port of any switching unit. A router cluster with the above switching chassis includes switching chassis and line processing chassis interconnected via optical fibers, where: any optical interface of any line processing chassis is connected to one cascade interface of any cascade unit; and any cascade interface of any cascade unit is connected to one switching port of any switching unit. With the present invention, the capacity of a router cluster can be expanded without the need to replace any component of the router cluster so that the expansion cost is lower.
US08743722B2
A radio terminal (1100A) comprises a communication unit (1120), a measurement unit (1140A), a measurement unit (1140B), and a control unit (1160A). The communication unit (1120) selects one of the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) scheme and the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) scheme as a communication scheme to be used in a cell formed by a radio base station and performs radio communication. The measurement unit (1140A) measures the receiving quality relating to the time difference between the preceding wave of a received signal and the delayed wave thereof in the OFDM scheme. The measurement unit (1140B) measures the receiving quality of a received signal in the CDMA scheme. In the case where the OFDM scheme is selected as the communication scheme to be used in an idle state, when the receiving quality relating to the time difference which is obtained by the measurement unit (1140A) is deteriorated below a threshold value corresponding to a guard interval used in the OFDM scheme, the control unit (1160A) causes the measurement unit (1140B) to measure the receiving quality of the received signal in the CDMA scheme.
US08743721B2
The invention relates to a method in a first communication device of receiving control information over a radio channel from a second communication device. The first communication device receives a subframe over the radio channel, and determines whether the subframe is a downlink subframe with downlink assignment intended for the first communication device by reading data in the subframe. That being the case, the first communication device decodes data within the subframe, and determines whether any data packet being sent from the second communication device before the subframe has been missed by analyzing an indicator associated to the subframe in the data. The indicator provides knowledge about previous downlink subframes with downlink assignment intended for the first communication device.
US08743714B2
A mobile communications system having a first base station and one or more second base stations is disclosed, wherein the first base station includes a first generator which generates a first known signal for use in common between the first base station and the second base station and a second known signal use specific to each of the first base station and the second base station, and a radio transmitter which wirelessly transmits, to a subordinate terminal apparatus, the first known signal and the second known signal which are generated by the first generator.
US08743713B2
The invention relates to a method for determining a quality of service (QoS). A received signal strength indicator (RSSI) value associated with a downlink signal, a gain of a downlink power amplifier, and an increase in the RSSI value received by the mobile device associated with the downlink signal are determined. The QoS based on at least one of the RSSI value, the gain, and the increase in RSSI value received by the mobile device is determined and displayed to the user.
US08743710B2
In a wireless communication system including a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) which transfers data to a Node-B, data transmission parameters such as modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and transport block set (TBS) size are dynamically adjusted on a transmission time interval (TTI) basis, and hybrid-automatic repeat request (H-ARQ) processes used to control the transfer of data between the WTRU and the Node-B are initiated and released, as required. The WTRU transmits and retransmits data to the Node-B through an enhanced uplink (EU) dedicated channel (E-DCH) in accordance with data feedback information received from the Node-B. The WTRU queues data for transmission, and determines a transmission status of the data. The transmission status is set to one of “new transmission,” “successful transmission,” “retransmission” and “restarted transmission.” For each TTI, the WTRU initiates an EU transmission to the Node-B which identifies the assigned H-ARQ process, TBS size and MCS.
US08743705B2
A wireless mesh network test system comprises a plurality of mesh network nodes, each comprising an antenna connection. An antenna network couples the antenna connections of the plurality of nodes, and a plurality of attenuators are distributed in the antenna network such that the attenuators simulate distance between the wireless mesh network nodes.
US08743704B2
A monitoring apparatus that identifies a failure path in a network including a relay device includes a packet receiving unit configured to receive packets that are transmitted in the network and an identification unit configured to, when deterioration of quality is detected between a transmission source subnetwork and a destination subnetwork of the received packet based on information included in the received packet received by the packet receiving unit, perform a quality measurement on a plurality of packets that are estimated to be routed through different paths among a plurality of transmission paths between the transmission source subnetwork and the destination subnetwork based on a transmission source address or a destination address so as to identify which packet is a packet that is routed through the failure path.
US08743694B2
Bypass zones for a network are identified by generating bypass identifiers that identify the bypass zones from network configuration settings. During call setup the bypass identifier assigned to an endpoint for the call is identified and the bypass identifier assigned to a gateway for the call is identified. A determination is then made as to whether the bypass identifier assigned to the gateway is the same as the bypass identifier assigned to the endpoint. If the bypass identifiers are the same, then a mediation server may be bypassed for the call. If the bypass identifiers are not the same, then the mediation server remains in the media path for the call.
US08743693B2
The invention includes a method for determining a maximum size of a token bucket. One method includes detecting a condition and determining the maximum token bucket size in response to the condition. The condition may include one of a packet drop and a reduction of a current token bucket size, an actual information rate satisfying a rate threshold, or a current token bucket size satisfying a size threshold. Another method includes detecting a packet drop, detecting a reduction of a current token bucket size, and determining the maximum token bucket size in response to the packet drop and the reduction of the current token bucket size. Another method includes detecting a condition and performing an initial bucket size adaptation in response to the condition where the initial bucket size adaptation has an initial adaptation rate greater than a subsequent adaptation rate associated with a subsequent bucket size adaptation.
US08743682B2
Disclosed is a preamble transmission method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system. The preamble transmission method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system includes detecting the occurrence of an event, and transmitting a preamble corresponding to the detected event to a network through a random access channel (RACH). Congestion in a wireless network can be reduced, and a procedure for notifying of the occurrence of an event can be simplified.
US08743677B2
In one embodiment, a system includes a first network, a second network, and a core network connecting the first network to the second network. The first network includes a first set of two or more network devices, wherein the first network has a first spanning tree associated therewith. Similarly, the second network includes a second set of two or more network devices, wherein the second network has a second spanning tree associated therewith, wherein the second spanning tree is separate from the first spanning tree.
US08743673B2
A light source device configured as a master oscillator power amplifier includes a mode locked laser unit having an external resonator and a semiconductor optical amplifier that amplifies and modulates laser light emitted from the mode locked laser unit. The width in a lateral direction of a waveguide on an incident side of the semiconductor optical amplifier is set so that a horizontal lateral mode of the waveguide on the incident side of the semiconductor optical amplifier becomes multiple modes, and a magnification conversion unit that converts a magnification of incident light from the mode locked laser unit to the semiconductor optical amplifier is disposed so that a basic mode is selectively excited in optical coupling on the incident side of the semiconductor optical amplifier.
US08743670B2
A data medium of the compact disc type may include medium areas of different types configured to define digital content, and a controllable element having two different states corresponding respectively to the two different types of areas. The controllable element may be configured to take selectively one of its states in response to a command, so as to modify in a controllable manner the content of the data medium.
US08743669B2
An optical disc drive and a method of reading an optical disc are disclosed. The drive includes an I/O port, an optical pickup module and a format conversion unit. The I/O port couples a host to receive a read command of a host terminal file system format. The optical pickup module accesses the optical disc which contains data of a first file system format. The format conversion unit coupled between the I/O port and the optical pickup module includes a mapping information generation module, a memory module and a read-command processing module. The mapping information generation module controls the optical pickup module to access data and thereby to generate mapping information. The memory module stores the mapping information. The read-command processing module controls the optical pickup module to access the optical disc according to the read command by referring to the mapping information.
US08743668B2
In an optical pickup equipped with a semiconductor laser, electro-optical components such as a lens, and an objective lens drive device, the objective lens drive device includes objective lenses, a holder holding the objective lenses, a focusing coil, and tracking coils. The focusing coil is wound in parallel to the optical surface of the objective lens, and formed in a parallelogram shape having inclined portions provided near the tracking coils. The two tracking coils are placed on diagonal portions of the lens holder.
US08743659B1
The invention provides devices and methods for using acoustics to communicate between a macro-scale transceiver and a micro-device or between multiple micro-devices. The micro-devices may passively scatter sound from a transceiver or actively generate sound. Acoustic waves can also provide power to a micro-device.
US08743656B2
The invention relates to a method of seismic data processing, wherein the data includes a set of seismic traces, with each trace including a signal that has been recorded by a sensor after having been propagated in a subsurface area, with the signal being defined by an amplitude as a function of time, including the steps of: migration of data according to an initial time-velocity model, picking in the time-migrated data one or more event(s) corresponding to one or more subsurface reflector(s) so as to obtain facets locally approximating the event, kinematic demigration of the facets plotted so as to obtain simplified seismic data in the form of a set of facets and a set of attributes associated with the facets.
US08743645B2
In a semiconductor memory device, static memory cells are arranged in rows and columns, word lines correspond to respective memory cell rows, and word line drivers drive correspond to word lines. Cell power supply lines correspond to respective memory cell columns and are coupled to cell power supply nodes of a memory cell in a corresponding column. Down power supply lines are arranged corresponding to respective memory cell columns, maintained at ground voltage in data reading and rendered electrically floating in data writing. Write assist elements are arranged corresponding to the cell power supply lines, and according to a write column instruction signal for stopping supply of a cell power supply voltage to the cell power supply line in a selected column, and for coupling the cell power supply line arranged corresponding to the selected column at least to the down power supply line on the corresponding column.
US08743641B2
A memory element in which the temperature coefficient of a memory cell substantially matches the temperature coefficient of a reference cell and tuning either the temperature coefficient of a memory cell to substantially match the temperature coefficient of the reference cell provides for improved precision of sensing or reading memory element states, particularly so as to minimize the affect of temperature variations on reading and sensing states.
US08743640B2
Methods and systems for measuring the resistance of multiple memory elements are disclosed. The memory elements may be multi-bit memory and through precise measurement of resistance of the multi-bit memory elements, determination of how many and which memory elements fall into specific memory ranges can be accomplished. Furthermore, storage and/or display of this information may allow for the creation of resistance distribution histograms for modeling of one or more memory arrays.
US08743638B2
A method and circuit for testing a multi-chip package is provided. The multi-chip package includes at least a memory chip, and the memory chip includes a number of memory cells. The method includes performing a normal read operation on the memory cells to check if data read from the memory cells is the same with preset data in the memory cells; and performing a special read operation on the memory cells to check if data read from the memory cells is the same with an expected value, wherein the expected value is independent from data stored in the memory cells.
US08743637B2
A clock signal is supplied to a first repair flag flip-flop, a second repair flag flip-flop, a first repair data flip-flop group, and a second repair data flip-flop group to serially transfer a second repair flag and a first repair flag stored in a non-volatile memory to the second repair flag flip-flop and the first repair flag flip-flop. Subsequently, repair data stored in the non-volatile memory is serially output to the first repair data flip-flop group, and repair data of the first repair data flip-flop group and the second repair data flip-flop group is serially transferred.
US08743635B2
A memory controller for strobe-based memory systems is disclosed. The memory controller includes a circuit to generate a control signal having a predetermined timing relationship with respect to a first clock signal, a circuit to receive the control signal, and a receiver to sample the read data in response to the qualified read strobe signal. The receiving circuit includes an input to receive an external read strobe signal transmitted by a semiconductor memory device, circuitry to synchronize the control signal and the received read strobe signal to have a common timing relationship with respect to each other, and circuitry to gate the read strobe signal based on the synchronized control signal.
US08743632B2
A nonvolatile memory device including a plurality of memory cells arranged at a region where a word line and a bit line cross each other, a voltage generator configured to generate a program voltage to apply to the word line by increasing the program voltage by an increment whenever a program loop is repeated, a current sensing check unit configured to compare a number of failed memory cells among the memory cells to first and second reference values, and a control logic configured to control the voltage generator to change the increment according to the comparison result of the current sensing check unit.
US08743626B2
Controlling a non-volatile memory. The non-volatile memory includes a plurality of memory cells in an integrated circuit substrate. The non-volatile memory also includes a high-voltage node in power-transmissive communication with the plurality of memory cells. Further, the non-volatile memory includes an intermediate-voltage node in power-transmissive communication with the plurality of memory cells. Moreover, the non-volatile memory includes a counter-doped-gate device, coupled within the integrated circuit substrate, in power-transmissive communication between the high-voltage node and the intermediate-voltage node.
US08743622B2
Memory devices and programming methods are disclosed. In an embodiment of one such method, a memory cell is programmed to at least a first threshold voltage. After programming the memory cell to at least the first threshold voltage, the memory cell is read, using a read voltage that is less than the first threshold voltage. After reading the memory cell, the memory cell is programmed to at least a second threshold voltage that is greater than the first threshold voltage.
US08743619B2
Strings of series-coupled memory cells selectively coupled to the same bit line may facilitate increased memory densities, reduced fabrication steps and faster read operations when compared to traditional memory array architectures. Reading of the memory cells may be accomplished using charge sharing techniques similar to read operations in a DRAM device.
US08743616B1
A system including an interference module and a programming module. The interference module is configured to generate interference values based on (i) a state to which a memory cell is to be programmed and (ii) states of one or more memory cells located near the memory cell, and store the interference values. The interference values indicate effects of the states of the one or more memory cells on the state to which the memory cell is to be programmed. The programming module is configured to determine a programming value to program the memory cell to the state based on one or more of the interference values.
US08743613B2
A solid-state memory device has a memory interface that includes a timing signal port for receiving a timing signal, a data transfer port, a data transfer module for transferring blocks of data signals between the data transfer port and the memory module, and a selectable delay module for providing a selected delay between transitions in the data signals DQ and transitions in the timing signals DQS. The memory interface also has a delay controller for setting the selected delay, for detecting a variation in a delay produced by the selectable delay module relative to a reference delay, for controlling a pause in transfer of a block of the data signals DQ, and for adjusting the selected delay during the pause.
US08743608B2
A nonvolatile memory apparatus includes: a memory cell array including a plurality of unit memory cells; a page buffer unit configured to read data from a selected memory cell of the memory cell array and store the read data; a controller configured to generate a reference current generation signal, a first current control signal, and a second current control signal, which correspond to the number of fail bits to be sensed and a deviation in cell current amounts flowing through the unit memory cells during a read operation, in response to a verification command; and a fail bit sensing unit configured to receive the reference current generation signal, the first current control signal, and the second current control signal from the controller in response to the verification command, and control at least one of a reference current amount and a data read current amount of the page buffer unit.
US08743607B2
Data storage circuits are connected to the bit lines in a one-to-one correspondence. A write circuit writes the data on a first page into a plurality of 5 first memory cells selected simultaneously by a word line. Thereafter, the write circuit writes the data on a second page into the plurality of first memory cell. Then, the write circuit writes the data on the first and second pages into second memory cells adjoining 10 the first memory cells in the bit line direction.
US08743605B2
A method includes storing data in an analog memory cell by writing an analog value into the memory cell. After storing the data, the data stored in the memory cell is read by discharging electrical current to flow through the memory cell, during a predefined time interval, while applying a variable voltage to a gate of the memory cell. A fraction of the predefined time interval, during which the variable voltage allows the electrical current to flow through the memory cell, is estimated. The stored data is estimated based on the estimated fraction.
US08743602B2
Embodiments of present invention relate to a nonvolatile memory device that includes a first page buffer controlling any one of a first even bit line and a first odd bit line; a second page buffer controlling any one of a second even bit line and a second odd bit line; wherein the second page buffer operates the second odd bit line according to program when the first page buffer operates the first even bit line according to program, and the second page buffer operates the second even bit line according to program when the first page buffer operates the first odd bit line according to program.
US08743588B2
Disclosed herein is a resistance-change memory device including a bit line; a voltage supplying layer; a memory element connected between the bit line and the voltage supplying layer, a resistance value of the memory element being changed in accordance with an applied voltage; and a drive controlling circuit causing a first current to flow through the bit line and causing a second current smaller than the first current to flow through the bit line, thereby controlling a resistance decreasing operation in which the memory element is made to transit from a high resistance state to a low resistance state by using the second current.
US08743586B2
A electrometric access head includes a supporting substrate and a plurality of read elements mounted on the supporting substrate. Each read element includes an electrometric sensor for detection of a sign of polarization of domains within a ferroelectric data layer of a ferroelectric storage medium. The ferroelectric data layer serves as a layer for storing information as bits defined by the signs of polarization of domains within the ferroelectric data layer, each polarized domain including a volume dipole polarization within the ferroelectric data layer and including an area of bound charge on and adjacent to a surface of the ferroelectric data layer.
US08743583B1
Disclosed are various embodiments related to stacked memory devices, such as DRAMs, SRAMs, EEPROMs, ReRAMs, and CAMs. For example, stack position identifiers (SPIDs) are assigned or otherwise determined, and are used by each memory device to make a number of adjustments. In one embodiment, a self-refresh rate of a DRAM is adjusted based on the SPID of that device. In another embodiment, a latency of a DRAM or SRAM is adjusted based on the SPID. In another embodiment, internal regulation signals are shared with other devices via TSVs. In another embodiment, adjustments to internally regulated signals are made based on the SPID of a particular device. In another embodiment, serially connected signals can be controlled based on a chip SPID (e.g., an even or odd stack position), and whether the signal is an upstream or a downstream type of signal.
US08743581B2
A representative memory device includes a cell array, at least one break cell that subdivides the cell array into bit cell arrays, and one or more power switches that are electrically coupled to the bit cell. In one embodiment, the break cell separates a connectivity of a first voltage and a second voltage between at least two bit cell arrays so that the bit cell arrays can be selectively coupled to either the first voltage or the second voltage using the power switches. The power switches control the connection of each separated bit cell array of the cell array to either the first voltage or second voltage.
US08743578B2
Hydro-carbon nanorings may be used in storage. Sufficiently cooled, an externally hydrogen doped carbon nanoring may be used to create a radial dipole field to contain streams of electrons. Similarly, an internally hydrogen doped carbon nanoring may be used to create a radial dipole field to contain streams of positrons. When matched streams of positrons and electrons are sufficiently compressed they may form Cooper pairs with magnetic moments aligned to the movement of the stream. Matched adjacent Cooper pairs of electrons and positrons may contain information within their magnetic moments, and as such, may transmit and store information with little or no energy loss.
US08743575B2
A switch mode pulse width modulated DC-DC power converter having at least one first electronic circuit on an input side and a second electronic circuit on an output side. The first electronic circuit has terminals connecting to a source or load and at least one storage inductor, coupled in series with at least one power transformer winding. For each transformer, an arrangement of switches is adapted to switch the current through the first winding between first and second, ON- and OFF-states. At least one energy storage inductor is charged when all switches of the switching arrangements are conducting and the current through the first winding is in an OFF-state. The second electronic circuit has connecting terminals and a single arrangement of switches to switch the current through the second transformer winding, between the first and second ON- and OFF-states.
US08743573B2
A voltage inverter capable of operating in the event of a short-circuit or open-circuit fault. The voltage inverter includes: a load having three phases, each phase having a first terminal and a second terminal; first and second cells each including three branches connected together in parallel, each branch including two switches connected in series and a mid-point positioned between the two switches, each first terminal of each of the phases being connected to one of the mid-points of the first cell and each second terminal of each of the phases being connected to one of the mid-points of the second cell; and a DC voltage source, the first and second cells each being connected to the DC voltage source via two electrical isolators.
US08743570B2
A device for converting direct voltage from an electrochemical store or a fuel cell to alternating voltage, includes a two-stage design having a single DC/DC converter stage for generating an intermediate circuit voltage from the output voltage of the electrochemical store or the fuel cell, which converter stage converts, in particular raises, the direct voltage in a wide input voltage range directly to an intermediate circuit voltage with which a DC/AC converter stage can be operated to generate the alternating voltage. The single DC/AC converter stage generates the alternating voltage from the intermediate circuit voltage. The invention further relates to a method for actuating a device for converting direct voltage from a store or energy generator into alternating voltage for feeding into a supply network.
US08743565B2
The power converter is an integration of three topologies which include a forward converter topology, a flyback converter topology, and a resonant circuit topology. The combination of these three topologies functions to transfer energy using three different modes. A first mode, or forward mode, is a forward energy transfer that forwards energy from the input supply to the output load in a manner similar to a forward converter. A second mode, or flyback mode, stores and releases energy in a manner similar to a flyback converter. A third mode, or resonant mode, stores and releases energy from the resonant tank using a resonant circuit and a secondary side forward-type converter topologies.
US08743562B2
A cam system includes a beam including a plurality of coupling features. A first handle is operable to be coupled to the beam using the coupling features. A plurality of cam elements are each operable to be coupled to the beam at different locations along the beam using the coupling features. A plurality of cam brackets are each operable to be mounted to a first member having a first connector. The coupled-together beam, first handle, and cam elements are operable to be coupled a second member having a second connector such that, with the cam brackets mounted to the first member, the engagement of the cam elements with the cam brackets mate the first connector and the second connector.
US08743558B2
An information handling system device includes a plurality of electronic components; an electric circuit including at least one trace for connecting two or more of the plurality of electronic components and transmitting data between the plurality of electronic components via at least one electric signal; and a substrate including an insulating material for serving as a base for the electric circuit, wherein each of the at least one electric signal transmitted between the plurality of electronic components is transmitted utilizing slope manipulation by manipulating each of the at least one electric signal to provide a slope substantially proportional to a discrete integer data value of n discrete integer data values, n being a positive integer greater than or equal to 3, said discrete integer data value represented by using one of n distinct slopes transmitted utilizing a particular reference voltage of n predetermined reference voltages.
US08743556B2
In at least one embodiment, a vehicle power module comprises a first printed circuit board (PCB) including a first plurality of electrical components for providing a first voltage and a second voltage. The vehicle power module further comprises a second PCB including a second plurality of electrical components, the second PCB being spaced away from the first printed circuit board and a first connector assembly being coupled to the first PCB and to the second PCB for providing the first voltage to the second PCB. The vehicle power module further comprises a second connector assembly being coupled to the first PCB and to the second PCB for providing the second voltage to the second PCB. The first connector assembly provides the first voltage of up to 14V and the second connector assembly provides the second voltage of 200V or greater.
US08743549B2
A system for storing data includes a rack, one or more data storage modules coupled to the rack, and one or more data control modules coupled to the rack. The data storage modules may include a chassis, two or more backplanes coupled to the chassis, and one or more mass storage devices (for example, hard disk drives) coupled to the backplanes. The data control modules may access the mass storage devices in the data storage modules.
US08743546B2
The sheet structure includes a plurality of linear structure bundles 12 each of which comprises a plurality of linear structures of carbon atoms arranged, spaced from each other at a first gap and which are arranged at a second gap which is larger than the first gap; and a filling layer 14 filled in the first gap and the second gap and supporting the plurality of linear structure bundles 12.
US08743543B2
A computer system may include a connecting hub having a plurality of docking regions and be configured to provide to each docking region electrical power, a data network interface, a cooling fluid supply and a cooling fluid return; and a plurality of shipping containers that each enclose a modular computing environment that incrementally adds computing power to the system. Each shipping container may include a) a plurality of processing units coupled to the data network interface, each of which include a microprocessor; b) a heat exchanger configured to remove heat generated by the plurality of processing units by circulating cooling fluid from the supply through the heat exchanger and discharging it into the return; and c) docking members configured to releaseably couple to the connecting hub at one of the docking regions to receive electrical power, connect to the data network interface, and receive and discharge cooling fluid.
US08743540B1
An electronic apparatus has a plurality of basic structures arranged adjacent to each other in a direction perpendicular to a gravitation direction. Each of the basic structures includes a casing, a board placed parallel to the gravitation direction inside the casing, a first space with large ventilation amount and a second space with small ventilation amount formed by the board dividing the inner space of the casing, vents in the upper and lower surfaces of the casing, an electronic component placed on the board in the first space, and an electronic component placed on the board in the second space. The casings of adjacent basic structures are in communication through inner vents in respective side walls of the casings, and external vents in communication with the outside are provided in left and right side walls of the electronic apparatus.
US08743537B2
An airflow adjustment device is disclosed. The airflow adjustment device is used for a blade server provided for plugging in an interface card, and the interface card includes a bracket. The airflow adjustment device is installed in the blade server, and the airflow adjustment device includes a top cover, a plurality of sidewalls, a bracket plate, and at least one deflector. The bracket plate is used for sheltering the bracket, and air enters the blade server through the at least one deflector and at least one gap area formed by the bracket plate and at least one of the plurality of sidewalls whereby the flow resistance of the blade server is not affected by the type of the bracket.
US08743534B2
The present invention provides a resin chassis base that can correspond to for various components and components with various sizes by providing a plurality of sets of mounting holes thereon. The present invention provides a resin chassis base that fixes an electric substrate, and is mounted to a component provided in an electric apparatus, the resin chassis base having formed thereon the plurality of sets of mounting holes in order to be screwed to various components and/or components with various sizes. The resin chassis base is screwed by use of any one of the plurality of sets of the mounting holes formed on the resin chassis base.
US08743531B2
A drawout unit that disconnects both polarities of DC current from a DC source, when all poles are used for one of the polarities leaving no pole available to disconnect the other polarity. The drawout unit includes a disconnect device having a four-pole switch, and all four poles are series-connected to the positive (ungrounded) polarity. A separate drawout module with its own housing is connected to the negative (grounded) polarity, and together, the disconnect device and the drawout module are positioned in a cradle with a racking mechanism for racking both the device and the module in and out of the cradle simultaneously, thereby obtaining total isolation of both polarities. In this configuration, the installer has the option to ground the negative polarity, while leaving the positive polarity ungrounded. The drawout module has a through bar conductor that passes the negative polarity of the DC current through the drawout unit.
US08743521B2
A photovoltaic system having a photovoltaic generator, whose strings with series-connected photovoltaic modules have a positive pole and a negative pole, and with an inverter whose DC input is connected to the two poles. The voltage of the positive pole and/or of the negative pole is measured with respect to ground, and a first switching element located between the positive pole and the DC input of the inverter and/or a second switching element located between the negative pole and the DC input of the inverter is opened, while a third switching element located between the positive pole and the negative pole is closed, when the voltage of the positive pole or of the negative pole exceeds a predefined first or second limit value.
US08743518B1
A protection circuit for electronic circuitry comprising at least three diodes connected in series in such a manner that an anode terminal of a first diode is connected to a cathode terminal of a second diode to form a ring. A first terminal is connected between diodes of a first pair of consecutive diodes of the ring. A second terminal is connected between diodes of a second pair of consecutive diodes of the ring. The position of the first terminal is fixed and position of the second terminal is selectable in such a manner that a pre-determined turn-on voltage of the at least three diodes is obtained.
US08743512B2
A circuit for interfacing to a limit switch configured to be closed when a wire connected to the limit switch is relatively hot and configured to be opened when the wire is relatively cold includes an input, an output, and a control portion. The input is configured to receive a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal having a duty cycle with a high pulse and a low pulse. The output is configured to apply the PWM signal to an external transistor associated with the wire, and a control portion. The high pulse actuates heating of the wire when the high pulse is applied to the external transistor. The control portion is configured to cause voltage across the limit switch to be substantially zero, whereby arcing of the limit switch is relatively minimal, when the limit switch closes while the high pulse is being applied to the external transistor.
US08743498B2
In one embodiment, a data storage system includes a tape channel for reading data from a magnetic tape medium to produce a signal, a noise whitening filter positioned subsequent to the tape channel adapted for receiving the signal, wherein the noise whitening filter is adapted for minimizing variance of its output signal, a soft detector adapted for receiving output from the noise whitening filter, the soft detector adapted for calculating first soft information about each bit of the signal and sending the first soft information to a soft decoder, and the soft decoder positioned subsequent to the soft detector, the soft decoder being adapted for calculating second soft information about each bit of the signal and sending the second soft information to the soft detector. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are described according to more embodiments.
US08743494B2
An extended servo mark word is used when an error is detected from a servo mark. For example, a servo mark associated with a disk drive track may be detected during a data access operation. In response to an error in detecting the servo mark, at least one adjacent bit is evaluated together with the servo address mark to overcome the error.
US08743492B2
In one embodiment, a data storage system includes a head; a drive mechanism for passing a medium over the head; a controller electrically coupled to the head; logic encoded in or available to the controller for: periodically determining a stopwrite threshold based on a standard deviation or a variance at a current position error signal sample, wherein a smoothing factor applied to a subsequent calculation of the standard deviation or variance is altered based at least in part on a current magnitude of the standard deviation or the variance; determining whether the current position error signal sample exceeds the stopwrite threshold; disabling writing when the current position error signal sample exceeds the stopwrite threshold; and enabling writing when the current position error signal sample does not exceed the stopwrite threshold. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are described according to more embodiments.
US08743485B2
The present invention provides a wide-viewing-angle imaging lens assembly comprising, in order from an object side to an image side: a front lens group, a stop, and a rear lens group. The front lens group comprises, in order from the object side to the image side: a first lens element with negative refractive power having a concave image-side surface and a second lens element. The rear lens group comprises, in order from the object side to the image side: a third lens element with positive refractive power having a concave object-side surface and a convex image-side surface, a fourth lens element with positive refractive power having a convex object-side surface and a convex image-side surface, and a fifth lens element with negative refractive power having a concave object-side surface. Such an arrangement of optical elements can effectively enlarge the field of view of the wide-viewing-angle imaging lens assembly, reduce the sensitivity of the optical system, and obtain good image quality.
US08743454B2
An optical amplifier includes at least one pump source and an optical fiber cable which includes an amplifying optical fiber and a pump optical fiber that are defined by respective lengths. The amplifying optical fiber and the pump optical fiber are coated with a common coating along a portion of their respective lengths, and the fibers are in optical contact with each other along a coating length within the common coating. The common coating has a refractive index which is lower than a refractive index of a cladding material of the pump optical fiber. The fibers are made substantially from glass. The amplifying optical fiber includes a core and a cladding, and is doped with a rare earth dopant. The pump optical fiber is defined by a first end and a second end, the first end of the pump optical fiber being connected to the pump source.
US08743446B2
Provided is a display device, including: a sealing member including an opening and surrounding a space defined by a pair of light transmissive substrates; an end seal for closing the opening of the sealing member to form an encapsulation space; oil filled in the encapsulation space; a spacer for maintaining an interval between the pair of light transmissive substrates; a shutter; a drive portion arranged in the oil, for mechanically driving the shutter; and a wall portion formed on at least one of opposed surfaces of the pair of light transmissive substrates. The wall portion includes apart arranged at a position interrupting a shortest path between the opening of the sealing member and a display region. The wall portion is made of a material forming the spacer, the shutter, and the drive portion.
US08743445B2
An optical deflector including a rotary member supported by a bearing shaft and rotatively driven by a motor for deflecting a plurality of laser beams separated from each other in a rotational axis direction of the rotary member is disclosed. The optical deflector includes a polygon mirror having four sides arranged about the rotational axis direction. Each of the four sides is a continuous plane having a plurality of effective reflection areas separated from each other in the rotational axis direction.
US08743443B2
The invention provides a hologram fabrication process, characterized by comprising steps of fabricating a computer-generated hologram (CGH) having amplitude information and phase information recorded by computer operation on a given recording surface, irradiating the computer-generated hologram (CGH) with the first reconstructing illumination light (2) to generate the first diffracted light (3) from the computer-generated hologram (CGH) thereby reconstructing a first reconstruction image (O′), simultaneously entering the first diffracted light (3) and the first reference light (4) in a first-stage hologram recording material (11) faced away from the first reconstructed image to record a first-stage hologram (11) in it, irradiating the recorded first-stage hologram (11) with the second reconstructing illumination light (5) to generate the second diffracted light (6) from the first-stage hologram (11) thereby reconstructing the second reconstruction image (O″), and simultaneously entering the second diffracted light (6) and the second reference light (7) in a second-stage hologram recording material (21) located near the second reconstructed image (O″) to record the second-stage hologram (21) in it as a reflection or transmission type volume hologram.
US08743442B2
An image display device includes an image forming device, collimating optical system, and optical device, with the optical device including a light guide plate, first diffraction grating member and second diffraction grating member which are made up of a volume hologram diffraction grating, and with central light emitted from the pixel of the center of the image forming device and passed through the center of the collimating optical system being input to the light guide plate from the near side of the second diffraction grating member with a certain angle. Thus, the image display device capable of preventing occurrence of color irregularities, despite the simple configuration, can be provided.
US08743438B2
An image processing apparatus for performing image thinning processing, comprises: a thinning unit configured to be able to execute a plurality of thinning processes which have different output image qualities and processing times; an acquisition unit configured to acquire status information indicating a status of the apparatus; a division unit configured to divide an image into a plurality of divided images; a prediction unit configured to predict a processing time when thinning processing executed by the thinning unit is applied to each divided image divided by the division unit; and a selection unit configured to select, based on the status information acquired by the acquisition unit and the predicted processing time predicted by the prediction unit, thinning processing to be applied to each divided image from the plurality of thinning processes executed by the thinning unit.
US08743436B2
A color information processing apparatus includes a mapping section for mapping a designated color that lies outside of the range of a gamut of a printing apparatus to the range of the gamut according to a plurality of mapping techniques, and a display device for simultaneously displaying the designated color and a plurality of colors mapped by the mapping section. For example, the display device simultaneously displays the designated color and colors mapped by the mapping section adjacent to each other.
US08743431B2
A sheet conveying device includes: a sheet housing unit that houses a sheet; a sheet conveying unit that conveys the sheet; a sheet detection unit that detects presence or absence of the sheet in the sheet housing unit; a sheet nipping unit that nips the sheet housed in the sheet housing unit; and a control unit. The control unit controls the sheet nipping unit to reach a nipping state to nip the sheet in the sheet housing unit upon the sheet detection unit detecting a sheet-present state, executes a power saving mode to stop supplying power to at least a part of the electric mechanisms when no drive command is input for a predetermined time, and controls the sheet nipping unit to cancel the nipping state before execution of the power saving mode.
US08743429B2
The invention relates to a device for reproducing images that can be found on originals, comprising at least one image capturing element that lies in a housing (1) and comprising a translucent panel (4) which lies between the image capturing element and the original and which is retained on the housing (1), said original being transportable on the panel for reproduction on the image capturing element. The essentially rectangular panel is retained on the housing at only two of the opposing edges (3, 5) of said panel. The first support for one of the edges (3) consists of at least one spring clip (2, 2′, 2″, 2′″), and the spring clip preloads the panel against the second support (6) for the opposing edge (5) of the panel. The panel (4) is associated with a handle (7, 7′), by means of which the panel can be manually moved out of the second support against the preload of the spring clip.
US08743426B2
Methods of image enhancement are disclosed. In one aspect, the method of image enhancement is for use with an image capture device, such as a security document reader, for the attenuation, separation or reduction of reflections from objects, such as security documents.
US08743424B2
A method for pre-print enhancement of a raster image is disclosed. The method includes receiving the raster image, categorizing an element in the raster image as a graphical element or an image element; and if the element is categorized as a graphical element applying graphical enhancement to the graphical element. A computer program product for pre-print enhancement of a raster image is also disclosed.
US08743423B2
An image forming apparatus for depicting a gradation image through halftones includes a threshold value generating unit for generating a threshold value matrix, and a comparison unit for converting the gradation image. The threshold value generating unit determines an order of gradations of pixels in halftones. The threshold value generating unit determines an order of standard dots. Further, the threshold value generating unit is configured to determine a priority order of gradations between the halftones. The threshold value generating unit further determines an order of the threshold values of the gradations of all of the pixels according to the order of the gradations of the pixels contained in the halftones and the priority order of the gradations between the halftones, so that the threshold value generating unit generates the threshold value matrix.
US08743422B2
An image processing apparatus includes an area specifying unit for specifying a text area including a text with an achromatic color and a background with an achromatic color, in an image to be output; an inversion processing unit for inverting the brightness of achromatic colors only for the specified text area; and an output unit for outputting an image including the text area where the brightness of achromatic colors is inverted. With respect to a gray-level achromatic color configuring a text in the specified text area, the inversion processing unit changes the color to be brighter than the case where the brightness is inverted.
US08743416B2
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a set of program instructions installed on and executed by a computer. The set of program instructions includes (a) acquiring a layout image size where the layout image is generated based on an original image data, the size of the layout image is specified by base data, and the base data represents graphical image in which the layout image is arranged and includes location data that specifies a location at which the original image data is stored, (b) acquiring an original image size, (c) determining whether the original image size is greater than the layout image size, (d) setting the original image as a print target when the original image size is greater than the layout image size, and (e) generating a print instruction instructing to print the original image set as the print target in a size larger than the layout size.
US08743415B2
An image forming apparatus includes a profile storage section that stores distortion characteristic of a scanning line, a correcting section that corrects image data by lines in the sub scanning direction, and a registration sensor that detects a pattern image for detecting color misregistration amounts in a sub scanning direction of images formed on an intermediate transfer member. When the pattern image is formed, the distortion correcting section shifts image data of the pattern image by lines in the sub scanning direction so that, with reference to a detection position of the registration sensor, a positional displacement amount of the pattern image in the sub scanning direction becomes less than or equal to ½ of a scanning-line distance, in accordance with a positional displacement amount of the scanning line in the sub scanning direction at a detection position of the registration sensor along a main scanning direction.
US08743411B2
Among other things, methods, systems and computer program products are disclosed for manipulating media. In one aspect, a first set of media item images is displayed in a first region of a display screen. The media item images are moved about a predetermined path within the first region in response to a received input. A second set of media item images is displayed in a second region of the display screen where the second set of media item images are associated with an indicated media item image displayed in the first region. At least one of the media item images in the second set of media item images displayed in the second region is different from the indicated media item image.
US08743410B2
Images are laid out appropriately according to the sizes of faces of people pictured therein. A user selects a plurality of images to be laid out on a single background image. A layout determining section selects a template having the same number of image insertion regions as the number of images selected by the user, from among a plurality of templates, each having one or more image insertion regions of various sizes. Whether faces are included in the images is judged. Image layout is determined such that images that include faces are inserted in image insertion regions of the template having greater sizes as the size of a representative face is smaller; and images that do not include faces are inserted into image insertion regions of the template having smaller sizes.
US08743407B2
A computer readable recording medium stored with a color conversion setting program, the program causes a computer to execute a process comprising: (a) generating a plurality of profile sets respectively associated with paper types, each of the profile sets being to be used for applying at least one kind of color conversion profile having conversion data for converting colors to a color conversion process depending on the particular paper type used for printing; (b) generating color setting information containing the plurality of profile sets respectively associated with paper types to be used during the color conversion process for each job; and (c) executing a control process for registering the color setting information generated in the step (b) to a storage unit, from which the color setting information is read out during the color conversion process.
US08743404B2
An image forming apparatus includes first and second interpreters configured to interpret page description language data and generate intermediate data. The apparatus further includes a setting unit configured to set an image quality priority mode for one of the first and second interpreters and a color/monochrome determination priority mode for the other of the first and second interpreters. Either the first interpreter or the second interpreter, for which the color/monochrome determination priority mode is set, skips the generation of the intermediate data for a processing target page in a case where it is determined that the processing target page is a color page.
US08743403B2
A method for archiving is disclosed. The method comprises generating a first image file corresponding to an original print using a first printer placed at a first location. Further, the first image file is transmitted from the first location to a second printer placed at a second location. The method further includes generating a duplicate print corresponding to the first image file at the second location. Further, a quality of the first image file is compared with a quality of the duplicate print, and the duplicate print is archived based on the comparison.
US08743396B2
A method of printing comprising: storing a plurality of sets of linearization data (32) for a printhead (12; 14; 16; 18) with each set corresponding to a different history of usage of the printhead; monitoring (S210) the history of usage of the printhead; selecting (S220), prior to printing, from said plurality of sets of linearization data a set of linearization data that is the set that most closely matches the monitored history of usage of the printhead prior to said printing; and printing (S250) the image using the selected set of linearization data.
US08743395B2
An image forming apparatus includes a communication unit, a prohibition unit, an execution unit, and a control unit. The communication unit communicates with an external apparatus. The prohibition unit prohibits the communication unit from communicating with the external apparatus when a command for executing initialization with respect to the image forming apparatus is specified. The execution unit executes a process for accepting set information of the initialization when the prohibition unit prohibits the communication unit from communication with the external apparatus. The control unit executes a process for informing that the initialization should be executed when an elapsed time of a waiting state where input of the set information is not executed exceeds a given period.
US08743394B2
An image capturing apparatus includes a housing, a processor module, a sheet feeder, an image capturing assembly, a display module and an operation interface. The image capturing assembly captures both of first and second images of a document sheet, past a scan region and transported by the sheet feeder, and produces first and second image data representative of the first and second images in either a single-sided or double-sided scanning mode. The display module displays representation images of the first and second images. The operation interface receives user input and outputs a selection signal comprising information of selecting at least one of the first and second images. The processor module processes at least one of the first and second image data into output image data according to the selection signal.
US08743392B2
An image forming apparatus includes plural input filter sections controlling different types of input-processing performed by corresponding input devices to produce respective input image data sets each having a different input format, plural output filter sections controlling different types of output-processing performed by corresponding output devices that receive respective output image data sets each having a different output format, and an image processing section being made sharable by any given one of the input filter sections and any given one of the output filter sections, and converting an image data set from an input format of the one of the input filter sections to an output format of the one of the output filter sections.
US08743391B2
An image processing apparatus including an input information acquiring unit configured to acquire entry information entered in defined areas of an input sheet as image information. The apparatus also includes a data format information acquiring unit configured to acquire corresponding areas of a format sheet as image information. The apparatus also includes a correlating unit configured to correlate the entry information entered in the defined areas of the input sheet and the corresponding areas of the format sheet.
US08743385B2
A service providing apparatus includes the following elements. A communication unit communicates with an external terminal apparatus. An operation unit is used by a user for performing an operation. A notification unit notifies a user of information. A login controller receives a login request of a user from the operation unit or from an external terminal apparatus via the communication unit, and determines whether to permit the login. Upon receipt of a login request from a second user when a first user has already logged in, the login controller notifies the first user of occurrence of the login request via the communication unit or the notification unit, and permits the login of the second user in accordance with a notification received from the first user via the communication unit or an operation performed by the first user with the operation unit.
US08743375B2
Provided is a parallelism measuring system and a method thereof, wherein the system includes a measured module, which includes a measured unit; a reference unit; and an optical measuring unit including an optical measuring module and a shift module. A lower surface of the measured unit is a measured surface and an upper surface of the reference is a reference surface. The optical measuring module includes a light source unit, a reflecting unit, and a sensing unit. A collimated beam is emitted from the light source unit and sequentially reflected by the measured surface, the reflecting unit and the reference surface to the sensing unit. The sensing unit senses location of the collimated beam and thereby calculates interval distance between the measured surface and the reference surface. By using the shift module to move the optical measuring module, the interval distance between different points may be measured.
US08743373B1
An interferometry method and associated system and computerized media for testing samples under test including those with high aberrations, comprising: situating a sample under test between a tilt mirror and a reference mirror, the tilt mirror tiltable with at least one degree of freedom about at least one tilt mirror axis, and further translatable along an axial line defined by a direction of propagation of a test wavefront from a source thereof; propagating the test wavefront toward the tilt mirror; after the test wavefront has been reflected by the tilt mirror, further propagating the test wavefront toward a reference mirror; and deriving a substantially complete first-tilt-alignment wavefront metrology of the sample under test from a plurality of first-tilt-alignment interferograms taken with the tilt mirror held fixed at a first predetermined tilt mirror angle while discreetly varying a displacement between the sample under test and the reference mirror.
US08743370B2
A delay interferometer includes a half beam splitter and two pentagonal prisms disposed on a substrate. The half beam splitter branches light to be measured which travels substantially in parallel with the substrate into two branched light beams. The pentagonal prisms respectively reflect the respective branched light beams such that the optical axes of the branched light beams are moved in parallel in a direction substantially perpendicular to the substrate by reflection. The half beam splitter combines the branched light beams reflected by the pentagonal prisms to generate interference light beams.
US08743357B2
A surface inspecting apparatus can inspect a smaller defect by using a PSL of a smaller particle size. However, the particle size of the PSL is restricted. In the conventional surface inspecting apparatus, therefore, no consideration has been taken as to how to inspect the defect of such a small particle size as is not set in the PSL which will be needed in the near future in an inspection of a semiconductor manufacturing step. The invention has a light source device for generating light which simulated at least one of a wavelength, a light intensity, a time-dependent change of the light intensity, and a polarization of light which was scattered, diffracted, or reflected by an inspection object, and the light is inputted to a photodetector of the surface inspecting apparatus. The smaller defect can be inspected.
US08743354B2
An optical blood monitoring system for blocking unwanted light from reaching sensors in a sensor clip assembly fastened to a blood chamber connected in an extracorporeal blood treatment system. The sensor clip assembly includes opposing heads with LED emitters and photodetectors. In one embodiment, lenses in the heads are surrounded by shrouds extending from the lenses so that when the sensor clip assembly is fastened to the blood chamber the shrouds block unwanted light from reaching the photodetectors. Either alternatively or as a complement to the shrouds, the blood chamber includes an opaque portion or a portion colored to attenuate particular wavelengths of light to further enhance the overall ability of the blood chamber and sensor clip assembly to block unwanted light from reaching the photodetectors.
US08743351B2
A laser Doppler velocimeter uses self-mixing amplification of backreflections from scatterers below the surface of a flow. A time domain signal is divided into segments that are roughly equal to a transit time of particles through a focus of a laser beam. The segments are connected to a frequency domain through the use of an FFT algorithm to produce frequency domain data segments. Signal-to-noise ratio is enhanced through signal processing techniques using the segments to produce a final enhanced signal spectrum.
US08743349B2
An apparatus and method of correcting an image are provided. The apparatus includes a receiver to receive a depth value and a luminous intensity, the depth value and the luminous intensity being measured by at least one depth sensor, and a correction unit to read a correction depth value of a plurality of correction depth values mapped to different depth values and different luminous intensities from a first storage unit and to correct the measured depth value using the read correction depth value, the correction depth value being mapped to the measured depth value and the measured luminous intensity.
US08743346B2
The present invention provides an inexpensive range image sensor and etc. A range image sensor comprises diffractive optical elements and on which are formed diffractive gratings that change a traveling direction of incident parallel light so that in a coordinate space defined by a xyz-axis, the incident parallel light is split into split beams, and angles formed by the x-axis and line segments determined by projected light spots formed by the split beams on a predetermined projection plane intersecting the z-axis become predetermined angles. Furthermore, the range image sensor is provided with a distance determining unit for determining distances to the projected light spots on the basis of the tilting with respect to the x-axis of the line segments determined by the projected light spots formed on the object by the split beams.
US08743345B2
A three-dimensional imaging and display system is provided in which user input is optically detected in an imaging volume by measuring the path length of an amplitude modulated scanning beam as a function of the phase shift thereof. Visual image user feedback concerning the detected user input is presented.
US08743335B2
An electronic device is disclosed. In some embodiments, the electronic device includes a liquid-crystal display (LCD) and a plurality of driver integrated circuits (ICs) coupled to the LCD. The driver ICs may be disposed near non-central locations along a side of the LCD, and in some embodiments, one of the driver ICs may be a master driver IC and the other driver IC or driver ICs may be slave driver ICs.
US08743334B2
A display substrate, a display device having the same and a method of manufacturing the display substrate are provided. The display substrate includes a base substrate having a pixels-populated area (PA) and a surrounding area (SA) outside the PA, a first contact pad portion formed in the surrounding area, a second contact pad portion formed in the surrounding area formed to be spaced apart from the first contact pad portion with a spacing region provided therebetween, an insulating layer formed in the spacing region between the first and second contact pad portions and having a thickness smaller than or equal to a thickness of each of the first and second contact pad portions, and a first conductive film formed on the first and second pad portions.
US08743328B2
Provided is a manufacturing method for a liquid crystal display device, in which a semiconductor pattern and a metal pattern are formed so that the semiconductor pattern includes a first portion formed under the metal pattern and a second portion which outwardly extends off the metal pattern from the first portion. An insulating layer for covering the metal pattern and the semiconductor pattern is formed. The insulating layer is subjected to etching in a first region located above the metal pattern and in a second region located above at least the second portion of the semiconductor pattern. In the etching step, the insulating layer in the first region is subjected to etching to form a through hole for electrical connection to the metal pattern, and the insulating layer and the semiconductor pattern in the second region are subjected to etching to remove the second portion of the semiconductor pattern.
US08743325B2
A liquid crystal display panel includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a liquid crystal layer disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate, a common electrode layer disposed on the first substrate and a plurality of pixel structures disposed on the second substrate. Each of the pixel structure includes a first data line, a second data line, a third data line and at least a capacitance adjusting layer. The capacitance adjusting layer is disposed between the common electrode layer and the second data line.
US08743322B2
A liquid crystal display device is provided which prevents variation in display from being caused due to misalignment of positions of exposure heads and/or error in assembly, and which is excellent in display quality. A liquid crystal display device 1 includes: a color filter 2 and a TFT substrate 3 which are bonded so as to oppose each other; and liquid crystal (not shown) sealed in a space formed therebetween. The color filter 2 includes: a substrate 4; black matrixes 5 provided on the substrate 4; and a plurality of colored layers 6 and 7 which partially overlap the black matrixes 5 at each pixel position. Vertices of ridges 18a and 28a formed by the colored layers 6 and 7 overlapping the black matrix 5 are positioned in an area where upper edges 19a and 29a, respectively, which continue in the Y-axis direction, are shielded from light by a light shielding section 10a of the TFT substrate 3.
US08743317B2
An image forming apparatus includes: a functional element substrate to which a pixel is formed in a predetermined cycle; an opposed substrate formed on the functional element substrate; and an optical device arranged on the opposed substrate, which includes a transparent layer and an optical absorption layer arranged in a cycle of 1/n (n is an integer number) of the cycle of arranging the pixel, and restricts spread of transmitted light.
US08743315B2
The present invention relates to a surface light source, including a light source section made up of plural light emitting diodes and lenses that expand light from these light emitting diodes. The lens in the light source section has a light incident surface on which light from the light emitting diode is incident with an optical axis at a center, and a light exit surface that expands and emits the incident light. The light incident surface has a continued depressed surface, while the light exit surface has a continued projected surface. The lens performs such that “sag Y” decreases from a maximum value “sag Y0” with an increment of “θi”, where θi is an angle included between a straight line, connecting an arbitrary point on the light exit surface and a base point on the optical axis which corresponds to a position of the light emitting diode, and the optical axis; sag Y is a distance measured in a light axis direction from the base point on the optical axis to the arbitrary point on the light exit surface; and “sag Y0” is a value of sag Y when angle θi is 0 (zero) degree, and wherein the light exit surface except a vicinity of the optical axis takes a shape satisfying a relation of 10 degrees<θmin<30 degrees, where θi takes a minimum value, i.e. θmin when curvature C of a micro-section on the light exit surface in a sectional view which includes the optical axis takes a minimum value.
US08743311B2
A liquid crystal display (LCD) including a display panel having a pixel for displaying an image; a backlight assembly for providing light to the display panel; a mold frame for receiving the backlight assembly; a chassis for supporting the display panel and the mold frame; and a ground tab between the mold frame and the chassis, the ground tab having elasticity and including a bent portion, the bent portion corresponding in shape to a bend in the chassis, and the ground tab overlying an upper surface and a side surface of the mold frame.
US08743306B2
A liquid crystal display device and a method of manufacturing the same. The liquid crystal display device includes a plurality of pixel cells on a substrate and a common voltage line. The common voltage line provides a common voltage to the pixel cells, and includes first to third interconnection patterns which are sequentially stacked over the substrate. Each of the pixel cells includes a storage capacitor which includes a lower electrode, and an upper electrode over the lower electrode. The second interconnection pattern includes the same material as a material of the upper electrode, and is formed in the same process as a process of the upper electrode.
US08743303B2
A liquid crystal display device displaying a three-dimensional image using a left-eye image and a right-eye image includes a liquid crystal panel including first and second substrates that are spaced apart from each other; a patterned retarder disposed over the liquid crystal panel; and an optical member disposed under the liquid crystal panel, wherein the optical member includes at least one inclined plane corresponding to each pixel region of the liquid crystal panel.
US08743300B2
Integrated touch screens are provided including drive lines formed of grouped-together circuit elements of a thin film transistor layer and sense lines formed between a color filter layer and a material layer that modifies or generates light. The common electrodes (Vcom) in the TFT layer can be grouped together during a touch sensing operation to form drive lines. Sense lines can be formed on an underside of a color filter glass, and a liquid crystal region can be disposed between the color filter glass and the TFT layer. Placing the sense lines on the underside of the color filter glass, i.e., within the display pixel cell, can provide a benefit of allowing the color filter glass to be thinned after the pixel cells have been assembled, for example.
US08743292B2
Video/audio production processing control synchronization apparatus and methods are provided. Processing control commands that are provided to a first installation of production processing equipment for controlling production processing of edit units of first production signals are echoed to another installation, or possibly multiple other installations, of production processing equipment. Timing information associated with the edit units is also provided to the other installation(s), to enable production processing of delayed production signals by the other installation(s) to be synchronized with the production processing by the first installation of production processing equipment. Multiple production processing equipment installations can be controlled and synchronized from a single control interface.
US08743291B2
A first video signal is accessed, and represented in a first color space with a first color gamut, related to a first dynamic range. A second video signal is accessed, and represented in a second color space of a second color gamut, related to a second dynamic range. The first accessed video signal is converted to a video signal represented in the second color space. At least two color-related components of the converted video signal are mapped over the second dynamic range. The mapped video signal and the second accessed video signal are processed. Based on the processing, a difference is measured between the processed first and second video signals. A visual quality characteristic relates to a magnitude of the measured difference between the processed first and second video signals. The visual quality characteristic is assessed based, at least in part, on the measurement of the difference.
US08743290B2
An apparatus of processing an image contains a scene-change-detecting unit that detects a scene change of input image based on an image signal relative to the input image, a display-position-controlling unit that determines a display position of an image after the scene change to a display position associated with an image before the scene change based on a detection result in the scene-change-detecting unit, and a display-position-setting unit that sets the display position determined in the display-position-controlling unit as a display position in which the image after the scene change is displayed. The display-position-controlling unit detects a feature value of the images before and after the scene change and determines the display position of the image after the scene change based on the feature value of the images.
US08743288B2
A method and an apparatus are provided for determining whether a-low resolution image is converted to a high-resolution image, and enhancing image quality of a video signal. The image processing method includes steps of receiving a video stream; determining whether the video stream includes a converted image converted from a low-resolution image to a high-resolution image; and enhancing image quality of the video stream when the video stream includes the converted image.
US08743287B2
Current output pictures of video data are generated utilizing a motion compensated (MC) blended picture and a corresponding non-MC blended picture of the video data. Windows of picture data from a first picture and MC windows of picture data from a MC previously output picture may be partitioned. The partitioned widows are compared and the first picture is blended with the MC previously output picture based on the comparison to, for example, reduce noise and prevent motion trail artifacts. Non-MC windows of picture data from a MC or non-MC previously output picture may be partitioned and compared with the windows of picture data from the first picture. The first picture may be blended with the MC or non-MC previously output picture based on the comparison to reduce motion trail artifacts. A blending factor is determined and utilized to blend the blended pictures to reduce noise and prevent motion artifacts.
US08743286B2
A peripheral control system enhances expandability in the operation of peripheral by enabling the customization and display of operation panels for each of the peripherals, regardless of whether any operation panel exists at the display device side. The peripheral control system is configured by connecting a TV and a recorder via an HDMI connection. The TV stores operation panel information that includes array information for arraying, on the screen, image data of the operation buttons that comprise the operation panel of the recorder. The recorder stores image data of the operation buttons, and sends, according to operation panel information obtained from the TV, the aforementioned stored image data of the operation buttons in association with the array information to the TV. The TV disposes and displays image data of the operation buttons sent from the recorder, at a position that is in accordance with the array information.
US08743285B2
A high definition television monitor adapted to display a program guide, for example an electronic program guide demonstration, in low definition mode (1H) and automatically switch to high definition mode (2H) upon completion of the program guide display.
US08743284B2
A multimedia device (100) including a separating entity configured to separate a multimedia stream into audio frames and video frames, a sequencing entity configured to add a sequence number to at least one audio frame, a transceiver configured to transmit audio frames to a remote audio device, a controller coupled to a video player, the controller configured to determine a delay associated with transmitting the audio frames to the remote audio device based upon the sequence number and to control the presentation of the video frames at the video player based on the delay.
US08743282B2
A digital cable broadcast receiver and a method for automatically processing caption data of various standards and types, is disclosed. The digital broadcast receiver includes: a demultiplexer for dividing a received broadcast stream into video data, audio data, supplementary information; a controller for determining whether caption data included in the video data is digital caption data or analog caption data on the basis of caption information included in the supplementary information, and outputting a control signal according to a result of the determining; a digital caption decoder for extracting and decoding digital caption data from the video data according to the control signal; and an analog caption decoder for extracting and decoding analog caption data from the video data according to the control signal.
US08743275B1
A mobile communication device includes a wireless communication interface arranged to transmit and receive data with a wireless data network; a microprocessor in operable connection with memory storing one or more computer applications that include a digital image capture application; a housing at least partially surrounding the wireless communication interface and the microprocessor and defining an outer surface for the mobile communication device; a camera lens in an aperture in the housing and arranged on a first side of the wireless communication device and located at least partially in the housing, and serving as a centerpoint for an intersection of a pair of axes that define four quadrants; and a plurality of flash generating devices on the first side of, and on the outer surface of, the wireless communication device, two of the flash generating devices located in quadrants that are positioned opposite of, and not adjacent to, each other.
US08743274B2
A portable digital image acquisition device includes multiple lenses and/or multiple flashes. A main digital image and first and second reference images are acquired. The first and second reference images are acquired with different flash-lens combinations that have different flash-lens distances. One or more flash eye defects are detected and corrected in the main image based on analysis of the first and second reference images.
US08743267B2
An optical apparatus includes a first driver configured to drive a focus lens unit in autofocusing, a second driver configured to drive the focus lens unit in the autofocusing, a first detector configured to detect a driving amount of the first driver, a second detector configured to detect a driving amount of the second driver, a memory configured to store a relationship between information of detection results of the first and second detectors, and an object distance as a distance from the optical apparatus to an object, and a controller configured to obtain information of the object distance based upon the relationship stored in the memory and the detection results of the first and second detectors.
US08743264B2
A camera module includes a lens barrel and a lens holder. The lens barrel includes a first tubular section and a second tubular section. The first tubular section extends from an end of the second tubular section. The outer diameter of the first tubular section tapers in a direction from the image side to the object side of the lens barrel. The lens holder includes a third tubular section and a fourth tubular section. The third tubular section extends from an end of the fourth tubular section. The outer diameter of the third tubular section tapers in a direction from an image side to an object side of the third tubular section. The lens barrel threadedly inserts into the lens holder and is held by the lens holder.
US08743256B2
The present invention relates to a solid-state image pickup element capable of transmitting pixel signals read from a pixel unit as optical signals at high speed, an optical apparatus, a signal processing apparatus, and a signal processing system.The solid-state image pickup element 1A includes a pixel unit 10A which converts light into electric signals, an A/D convertor 11A which converts the signals read from the pixel unit 10A into digital signals, an optical communication unit 12A which converts the signals digitalized by the A/D convertor 11A into optical signals and outputs the optical signals, a timing generator 13A which generates a driving clock used to synchronize processes of inputting/outputting signals performed by the pixel unit 10A, the A/D convertor 11A, and the optical communication unit 12A, and a controller 16A which controls reading of signals.
US08743254B2
In a reference signal comparison AD conversion scheme, a reference signal SLP_ADC and each of P and D phases of a pixel signal voltage VX are compared. A count clock CKcnt1 is counted based on the comparison result. The counting result data is converted into signal data Dsig, i.e., the difference between the P and D phases, which is also subjected to CDS. At this time, the n-bit AD conversion is performed on each of the P and D phases of the pixel signal voltage VX, followed by summation for digital integration. This prevents any possible detrimental effects that may be caused by summation in the analog domain. Although the signal data becomes W times greater, noise will likely become √W times greater. This alleviates the problem of random noise resulting from AD conversion such as quantizing noise and circuit noise that do not exist in the analog domain, thus reducing the noise.
US08743253B2
To reduce random noise caused by address setting in an apparatus that controls a read address of an image sensing device, without causing a significant increase in circuit complexity.A ring shift register sets a low-order address value depending on a value in steps of which an overall address value is incremented, and a Gray code counter sets a high-order address value. In the ring shift register, a carry from the lowest-order bit to the highest-order bit does not occur, and thus use of the ring shift register makes it possible to reduce the maximum number of toggled bits. The Gray code counter does not need to include a complicated circuit for switching the value in steps of which to increment the high-order address value. Thus, an overall address setting unit can be configured in a simple form without needing any complicated circuit such that addressing can be performed while maintaining the number of toggled bits within a small range and thus random noise generated in the addressing operation can be minimized.
US08743250B2
To provide a semiconductor device and a driving method of the same that is capable of enlarging a signal amplitude value as well as increasing a range in which a linear input/output relationship operates while preventing a signal writing-in time from becoming long. The semiconductor device having an amplifying transistor and a biasing transistor and the driving method thereof, wherein an electric discharging transistor is provided and pre-discharge is performed.
US08743239B2
Disclosed are an image processing apparatus which effectively corrects, by a simple method, color crosstalk that is generated in a captured image by light obliquely entering an image sensor, and a control method thereof. A white-detection area used in white balance processing for a captured image signal is set in accordance with an aperture value used in image capturing. The degree of color crosstalk depends on an aperture value used in image capturing, and the spectral sensitivity characteristic of the image sensor changes depending on the degree of color crosstalk. By setting a white-detection range to correct a change of the spectral sensitivity characteristic depending on the aperture value, color crosstalk can be simply, effectively corrected.
US08743234B1
A technique of approximating exponential transformations such as gamma correction is disclosed that achieves high resolution without requiring relatively large RAMs for lookup tables or specialized DSP processors. The technique includes the acts of scaling the pixel values according to their values, wherein smaller pixel values are scaled with larger scale factors and larger pixel values are scaled with smaller scale factors; quantizing the scaled pixel values; looking up the quantized pixel values in a lookup table to provide lookup values; and scaling the lookup values responsive to their scale factors to provide the gamma-corrected pixel values.
US08743233B2
An image capture device includes an image pickup unit including a plurality of pixels and photoelectrically converting an object image by the plurality of pixels; a white balance control unit for performing a white balance correction processing on pixel signals from the image pickup unit; and a sensitivity changing unit for changing the sensitivity of photographing, wherein the white balance control unit performs the white balance correction processing such that, as the sensitivity increases, a response to the light source is suppressed.
US08743225B2
An imaging control system for controlling a direction of an optical axis of an imaging unit is provided. The imaging control system includes a pan change unit configured to change the direction of the optical axis to a pan direction, a tilt change unit configured to change the direction of the optical axis to a tilt direction, and a display control unit configured to display the change direction to which the direction of the optical axis is changed by the pan change unit, corresponding to the change by the tilt change unit, together with an image captured by the imaging unit.
US08743207B2
An infrared camera architecture includes, for an embodiment, an infrared detector, a substrate, a plurality of electrical components coupled to the substrate, and a pedestal made of a thermally conductive material and having a leg coupled to the substrate. The infrared detector is supported by and thermally coupled to the pedestal, with the pedestal thermally isolating the infrared detector from the plurality of electrical components.
US08743204B2
An event within a surveilled area, a physically bounded region, can be detected in real-time. The event can be outside the field of view of a camera associated with the surveilled area. The event can be detected by a fiber optic sensor within the surveilled area which can measure an event metrics. Event information associated with the event can be received which can include a timing information, a sensor measurement, and a location information. An adjustment operation associated with the camera can be determined utilizing a mapping and the event location. The adjustment operation can be associated with a camera functionality and an adjustment value. The mapping can include a camera identification value, a camera location, and a field of view dimension. The field of view of the camera can be adjusted dynamically which can result in the location of the event being within the field of view.
US08743198B2
A method for detecting occupancy status of a plurality of conference rooms in real time is provided. The method enables, firstly, monitoring a first output signal of a first sensor. Secondly, the method enables monitoring a second output signal of a second sensor. The method further enables comparing the first and second output signals with one or more predetermined thresholds within a predetermined time. Furthermore, the method enables correlating the comparison results to identify any uncertainty in detecting the occupancy. Furthermore, the method enables processing output from one or more image and/or video sensors based on the correlation to obtain occupancy status information when there is uncertainty in detecting occupancy. Finally, the method enables displaying the occupancy status information on one or more user devices.
US08743194B2
An imaging system consisting of a cell-phone with camera as the detection part of an optical train which includes other components. Optionally, an illumination system to create controlled contrast in the sample. Uses include but are not limited to disease diagnosis, symptom analysis, and post-procedure monitoring, and other applications to humans, animals, and plants.
US08743189B2
An image processing apparatus includes an image acquiring unit that acquires an in-vivo image being a captured image of an inside of a body cavity; a feature-data calculating unit that calculates feature data corresponding to a pixel or an area in the in-vivo image; a body-tissue extracting unit that extracts, as a body tissue, a pixel or an area whose feature data corresponds to a predetermined threshold; a criterion creating unit that creates a criterion for detecting a detecting object based on the feature data of the body tissue; and a detecting unit that detects a body tissue corresponding to the criterion as the detecting object.
US08743187B2
Techniques and technologies are described herein for motion parallax three-dimensional (3D) imaging. Such techniques and technologies do not require special glasses, virtual reality helmets, or other user-attachable devices. More particularly, some of the described motion parallax 3D imaging techniques and technologies generate sequential images, including motion parallax depictions of various scenes derived from clues in views obtained of or created for the displayed scene.
US08743180B2
Systems and methods for performing multimedia conversion are disclosed. In a multimedia conversion system for converting two-dimensional (2D) multimedia data to stereoscopic multimedia data, an absolute difference between pixel pairs is determined for each scan line in a frame of the 2D multimedia data. The absolute difference values are accumulated, and a depth map is derived based on the accumulated difference values. The depth map is applied to the frame in the 2D multimedia data.
US08743175B2
A photographing apparatus has two binocular stereoscopic modes. In two-take photography mode, a 3D image file is generated from left and right monocular images acquired by performing monocular photographing twice, and the 3D image file thus generated is recorded. In one-take photography mode, a 3D image file is generated from left and right monocular images acquired by performing binocular photographing once, and the 3D image file thus generated is recorded. When the 3D image file is recorded, a homogeneity tag is recorded in 3D metadata, as tag information of the header data portion of the 3D image file. The homogeneity tag is information about the homogeneity of the two monocular images and describes whether the two monocular images have been acquired in the one-take photography mode in which monocular images highly homogeneous are provided, or in the two-take photography mode in which monocular images not so homogeneous are provided.
US08743172B2
A video conference system built in an internet protocol (IP) network is provided. The system has a multimedia capturing unit, a DECT telephone, and a video conference terminal apparatus. The DECT telephone is utilized to perform video conferencing with the video conference terminal apparatus by receiving and transmitting sounds. The DECT telephone is further utilized to control the video conference terminal apparatus to capture a target image in the video signals from other users in the video conference. The video conference terminal apparatus updates the phonebook image in the phonebook database thereof with the target image.
US08743171B2
Systems and methods are disclosed to automatically rescheduling and optionally transferring audio/video conferences when a conference runs longer than its previously allocated time. The disclosed relocation process incorporates one or more of a plurality of input sources such as electronic calendars, face/voice recognition systems, proximity systems, enterprise maps, and/or resource databases to assist in schedule adjustments. For example, if it is determined a meeting is running long then an organizer of a second impacted meeting can be notified of the over-run and prompted for information. If the second meeting organizer is amenable to delay or reschedule, options are presented to the second meeting organizer Once a plan change is determined, changes in schedule or location are automatically propagated to resources and attendees scheduled for the second meeting. Also, when a conference must relocate, actions associated with relocating resources are automated and confidentiality concerns can be taken into account.
US08743168B2
If an open-close lid is opened to perform cleaning for wiping the dirt off reflection surfaces of a polygon mirror, a service staff has difficulty in cleaning the reflection surfaces of the polygon mirror since the polygon mirror is located inside a housing. To respond to such an issue, a positional relationship between an installation position of the polygon mirror and an opening is set such that at least one of the reflection surfaces of the polygon mirror is exposed to the outside of the housing.
US08743164B2
According to one embodiment, a first conveying path to form a conveying path from a sheet supply portion toward an ejector, a reader arranged on the first conveying path to read an image on a surface of the sheet, an erasure to erase the image on the sheet formed with image erasable material, a switching portion arranged on the first conveying path at a downstream side of the reader in a sheet conveying direction to switch the sheet conveying direction to a direction of the ejector or a direction of the erasure, and a second conveying path having the erasure which, at a position where the switching portion is arranged, branches from the first conveying path at the downstream side of the reader and merges with the first conveying path at a meeting point between the sheet supply portion and the reader.
US08743158B2
Embodiments relate generally to computer-based image processing, and more particularly, to systems, apparatuses, integrated circuits, computer-readable media, and methods to facilitate operation of an image display system with a relatively high dynamic range by, for example, generating a rear modulator sub-image with color compensation techniques. The image display system can produce rear modulator drive levels that would enable a front modulator sub-image to be displayed without color errors arising for a certain color or colors when the image display system includes pixel mosaics.
US08743146B2
The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for implementing an augmented reality application. The method includes: searching for AR applications related to set AR application parameter; selecting at least two AR applications from multiple AR applications found through searching and integrating the at least two AR applications into one new AR application; and providing the new AR application after integration for a user.
US08743145B1
Augmented reality may be provided to one or more users in a real-world environment. For instance, information related to a recognized object may be displayed as a visual overlay appearing to be in the vicinity of the object in the real-world environment that the user is currently viewing. The information displayed may be determined based on at least one of captured images and transmissions from other devices. In one example, a portable apparatus receives a transmitted user ID and may submit the user ID to a remote computing device that compares a profile of a user corresponding to the user ID with a profile associated with the portable apparatus for determining, at least in part, information to be displayed as the visual overlay. As another example, the portable apparatus may include a camera to capture images that are analyzed for recognizing objects and identifying other users.
US08743143B2
Discussed is an image display device which detects image characteristic information from an image of a screen provided by a mobile terminal, extracts a characteristic area based on the image characteristic information, and automatically magnifies or reduces the extracted characteristic area and display the same, to thereby allow a user to conveniently and effectively view the image provided from the mobile terminal in a vehicle. The image display device includes: a communication unit configured to receive an image from a mobile terminal; a controller configured to detect image characteristic information of the received image, extract a first area on the basis of the detected image characteristic information, determine an image processing scheme with respect to the extracted first area, and process an image corresponding to the extracted first area according to the determined image processing scheme; and a display unit configured to display the processed image.
US08743136B2
Methods, apparatuses, and computer readable storage mediums for generating an object representation from a bitmap image by selecting a set of regions, including a background region, from the bitmap image. Color and partial transparency parameters of a first graphical object with partial transparency that overlaps a second graphical object are estimated according to colors of the set of regions. The estimated color and partial transparency are consistent with a transparency compositing model. Geometric models of the first and second graphical objects are constructed from the set of regions and the estimated color and transparency parameters of the first graphical object. The object representation is generated dependent upon the geometric models. The object representation may be an electronic document and the bitmap image may be a scanned version of a document.
US08743135B2
A smooth curve is represented in a graphics texture by setting the texels that are inside the curve 1 to a value greater than a predetermined threshold value and the texels that are outside the curve 1 to a value less than the threshold value (or vice-versa).The texture value returned for a sampled position can thus be used to determine whether the sampled position should be treated as being inside the curve 1 or not.The texture is optimised for sampling using bi-linear filtering.
US08743134B2
Interactive analysis of data objects within a display includes displaying icons representing different data objects on a graphic display device at each of a plurality of unique locations within a multi-dimensional relational structure as a function of unique respective values of dimensions of a display data variable that is relevant to the display structure and common to each of the data objects represented by the icons, and wherein the icons each have initial respective graphic display appearances. Selecting an icon specifies a comparison data variable common to the data objects, wherein graphic display appearances of each of the icons are updated at their same, unique locations to revised dimensional graphic display appearances that visually indicate relationships of respective values of the selected common comparison data variable of their represented data objects to a value of the selected common comparison data variable of the data object represented by the selected icon.
US08743132B2
A setting control apparatus includes a setting control part, a special register, and a read-out control part. The setting control part makes stored in a temporary storage part a control value used in a processing circuit, in response to an input of the control value. The special register is electrically connected to the processing circuit and serving as a storage element capable of storing the control value. The read-out control part controls a read-out operation for reading out the control value from the temporary storage part into the special register. The read-out control part performs the read-out operation at a predetermined timing after storing of the control value in the temporary storage part is completed.
US08743130B2
The APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR A DISTRIBUTED OBJECT RENDERER implement distributed rendering of complex visualizations in rich multimedia objects for sharing in online social networking applications. In one embodiment, a processor-implemented distributed rendering method is disclosed, comprising: obtaining a request to render an image of a visualization included in a client app; analyzing the render request to determine data required for render processing; providing a request for the data required for render processing; obtaining the data required for render processing upon providing the request for the required data; recreating an app state of the client app using the obtained data required for render processing, the recreated app state including data related to the visualization included in the client app; rendering the image of the visualization including in the client app using the recreated app state; generating a publishing element using the rendered image of the visualization included in the client app; and providing the publishing element for publication.
US08743128B2
A mobile wireless communications device may include a display, a graphics processing unit (GPU) being resettable and causing a change in the display when reset, a wireless transceiver, and a processor cooperating with the GPU and the wireless transceiver for wireless communications. The processor may be resettable along with the GPU, and the processor also may be partially resettable without resetting the GPU to avoid a change in the display.
US08743125B2
Natural inter-viseme animation of 3D head model driven by speech recognition is calculated by applying limitations to the velocity and/or acceleration of a normalized parameter vector, each element of which may be mapped to animation node outputs of a 3D model based on mesh blending and weighted by a mix of key frames.
US08743122B2
A graph exploration module is described which displays graph data (or any data set) using any one of an extensible collection of chart types. Some of the chart types may present aggregated results associated with the graph data. One chart type provides bars which represent aggregations of nodes in the graph data and a collection of links which represent relationships among the bars. The graph exploration module may present the chart in the context of an interactive exploration panel within an exploration canvas. A user can make various selections which prompt the graph exploration module to generate a new exploration panel, together with a link which connects to the new panel to the previous panel. This process can be repeated any number of times to produce one or more exploration paths which reveal a history of exploration actions made by the user(s). That history can be saved and later retrieved.
US08743114B2
Methods and systems to determine view cell occlusion, including to project objects of a 3-dimensional graphics environment to a 2-dimensional image plane with respect to the view point, to reduce sizes of corresponding object images, to generate an occluder map from the reduced-size object images, to compare at least a portion of the object images to the occluder map, and to identify an object as occluded with respect to the view cell when pixel depth values of the object image are greater than corresponding pixel depth values of the occluder map. Methods and systems to reduce an object image size include methods and systems to nullify pixel depth values within a radius of an edge pixel, and to determine the radius as a distance from the edge pixel to a second pixel so that a line between the view point and the second pixel is parallel with one or more of a line and a plane that is tangential to a sphere enclosing the view cell and a point on the object that corresponds to the edge pixel.
US08743106B2
By way of enabling a reset signal while turning off a liquid crystal display, a method for decaying residual image of the liquid crystal display is capable of setting the corresponding gate signal of each of a plurality of gate lines of the liquid crystal display based on the reset signal being enabled. Accordingly, enhanced discharging processes on all the storage units of the liquid crystal display for fast decaying residual image can be performed via the data switches of the liquid crystal display turned on by the gate signals being set. The reset operation for performing discharging processes in response to the reset signal can be carried out based on a reset circuit for setting all the gate signals to become high-level signals, or based on a charging/discharging module for furnishing a high-level voltage directly to all the gate lines.
US08743104B2
An organic light emitting display includes a current driving unit, an organic light emitting diode and a memory unit. The current driving unit is employed to provide a driving current according to a driving voltage generated therein. The organic light emitting diode generates a light output based on the driving current. The operation of the memory unit is controlled by a first auxiliary power voltage and a second auxiliary power voltage. When the first auxiliary power voltage is greater than the second auxiliary power voltage, the memory unit is enabled to perform a voltage retaining operation on the driving voltage. When the second auxiliary power voltage is greater than the first auxiliary power voltage, the memory unit is disabled for ceasing the voltage retaining operation.
US08743098B2
The present invention permits a capacitance value of an electro-optical element such as organic EL element to be arbitrarily set without changing the light extraction efficiency of a pixel. That is, the present invention permits a capacitance value Coled of an organic EL element (21) to be arbitrarily set by adjusting the light emission area of the organic EL element (21) without changing the light extraction efficiency of a pixel (20) in an organic EL display device. The organic EL display device has the pixels (20) arranged in a matrix form. A light extraction opening (56) is formed on the surface of the pixel with a light-shielding film (black matrix) (57). The light extraction opening (56) has an opening area smaller than the light emission area of the organic EL element (21).
US08743097B2
A liquid crystal display comprising an array substrate formed with gate lines, data lines and pixel electrodes. Odd rows of pixel electrodes in the same column are connected with one of data lines at two sides of the column, even rows of pixel electrodes are connected with the other one of the data lines; pixel electrodes in the same row are controlled by one of the two gate lines at two sides of the row of pixel electrodes, pixel electrodes controlled by each gate line are located in the same row; there are two gate lines between two adjacent rows of pixel electrodes; two adjacent pixel electrodes in the same row between two adjacent data lines are controlled by one of the two gate lines at two sides of the row of pixel electrodes, and they are connected with one of the two adjacent data lines.
US08743092B2
A display apparatus includes a display panel which include a plurality of areas; a communication unit which receive information about brightness sensed by a pointing device; a backlight unit which includes a plurality of light sources; and a controller which controls the backlight unit to change the brightness of the plural areas by a predetermined unit, and determines a pointing position of the pointing device on the basis of relative variation in the information about the brightness. With this, it is possible to detect a pointing position of a pointing device in a display apparatus having a hold-type display panel.
US08743082B2
A separate control system may be configured for a combined sensor device. Alternatively, at least part of the control system may be included in another device, such as a processor of a mobile device. Software for handwriting, touch and fingerprint detection may be included in the control system. Low, medium and high resolution may be obtained with a single combined sensor device by scanning a subset of the sensels, or by aggregating lines or columns. Power consumption may be reduced by aggregating sensor pixels (or rows or columns) electrically using the controller, so that they perform as a low power small array until higher resolution with a larger array is needed. Power consumption may be reduced by turning off portions or all of the sensor device, turning off parts of the control system, and/or employing first-level screening at a reduced frame rate.
US08743068B2
A touch screen method for recognizing a finger-flick touch gesture for an electronic device including a overlaying a plurality of transparent sensors on top of a visual display associated with the electronic device and where the transparent sensors are configured to be responsive to touch by at least one user finger and the visual display is for rendering visual information provided by the electronic device is disclosed. Control parameters associated with sensor measurements include parameter derived from recognizing a finger-flick touch gesture.
US08743049B2
An electrophoretic includes scanning lines, data lines, power supply lines and enable lines provided in a display section. The electrophoretic display device also includes, in each of pixels, a pixel electrode, a control transistor connected to one of the scanning lines and one of the data lines, a driving transistor having a gate connected to a drain of the control transistor and having a drain connected to one of the power supply lines, a storage capacitor connected to the gate and a source of the driving transistor, and an enable transistor connected between the source of the driving transistor and the pixel electrode. The enable transistor switches electrical connection between the pixel electrode and the driving transistor on the basis of a signal input through one of the enable lines.
US08743044B2
To suppress fluctuation in the threshold voltage of a transistor, to reduce the number of connections of a display panel and a driver IC, to achieve reduction in power consumption of a display device, and to achieve increase in size and high definition of the display device. A gate electrode of a transistor which easily deteriorates is connected to a wiring to which a high potential is supplied through a first switching transistor and a wiring to which a low potential is supplied through a second switching transistor; a clock signal is input to a gate electrode of the first switching transistor; and an inverted clock signal is input to a gate electrode of the second switching transistor. Thus, the high potential and the low potential are alternately applied to the gate electrode of the transistor which easily deteriorates.
US08743043B2
A method for driving a display device is provided herein. The display device includes a plurality of scan lines. The method comprises following steps: dividing the scan lines into a plurality of groups, each of which comprises at least two scan lines, i.e. a first and a second scan line; during a first frame period, sequentially enabling the first and second scan line of each group in accordance with a first driving sequence; and during a second frame period, sequentially enabling the first and second scan line of each group in accordance with a second driving sequence, wherein the first driving sequence is different from the second driving sequence.
US08743041B2
In order to carry out a display reset operation, a segment driver and a common driver are driven to operate as below during a display data reading period in which voltages to be applied to a liquid crystal display panel are nonuniform between lines. First, a shift register and a level shifter which are provided in the segment driver and a shift register and a level shifter which are provided in the common driver are driven to operate as usual, whereas a display control signal supplied from a controller causes output circuits to stop carrying out their respective output operations. In at least one embodiment, during a period in which a writing operation is carried out with respect to the liquid crystal display panel so as to carry out the display reset operation, the display control signal supplied from the controller allows the output circuits to carry out the respective output operations. This allows a memory (e.g., cholesteric) liquid crystal display device to carry out a display reset operation without causing display unevenness by simultaneously selecting a plurality of lines.
US08743039B2
A dynamic polarity control method for driving an LCD is provided. Gray level information is obtained, which indicates gray levels of dots in an image to be displayed. The gray level information is applied to each of a plurality of polarity patterns to obtain a plurality of combined patterns, wherein each of the polarity patterns has an individual polarity distribution. The gray levels of each of the combined patterns are summed up. A final pattern is selected from the plurality of polarity patterns according to the summed results, to drive the LCD for displaying the image.
US08743036B2
A liquid crystal display has a pair of substrates with liquid crystal sealed between them. A polymer layer regulates directions in which the liquid crystal molecules tilt. A plurality of gate bus lines and a plurality of drain bus lines are provided on one of the substrates. Color filters and a pixel electrode are provided on the substrate. The pixel electrode includes a first sub-pixel electrode and a second sub-pixel electrode. A common electrode is provided on the other substrate. A first and a second thin film transistor are connected to the first sub-pixel electrode. The first thin film transistors is connected to a first gate bus line, and the second thin film transistor is connected to a second bus line.
US08743034B2
An array substrate of a liquid crystal display (LCD) device comprising a switching device switching a connection between a short ring connected with a common line and each of a plurality of data lines. The switching device is turned off during a normal state, but is turned on by a control signal when the LCD device is turned off, thereby making an electrical potential of the data lines to be equal to that of the short ring.
US08743029B2
Disclosed herein is a display device including a pixel array unit, a first scanning circuit, a second scanning circuit and a selecting circuit.
US08743028B2
A display system in which the luminance of light-emitting elements in a light-emitting device is adjusted based on information on an environment. A sensor obtains information on an environment as an electrical signal. A CPU converts, based on comparison data set in advance, the information signal into a correction signal for correcting the luminance of EL elements. Upon receiving this correction signal, a voltage changer applies a predetermined corrected potential to the EL elements. Thus, this display system enables control of the luminance of the EL elements.
US08743019B1
Embodiments of the present invention include a host computer system implemented method comprising receiving an indication of total requested display size of a remotely coupled client computer system. The method further includes automatically determining a number of display screens and a predetermined average display screen size. The method further includes an operating system of the host computer system allocating therein a display area to accommodate the total requested display size and dividing the display area into a number of separate portions equal to the number of display screens usable by the client computer system. The method further includes allocating each separate portion of the display area of the host computer system to a respective display screen of the client computer wherein each separate portion so allocated functions as a separate and independent display screen.
US08743013B2
A cylindrical-shaped enclosure having tapered ends. The enclosure includes a module having a radio disposed on a printed circuit board and an antenna connected to the PCB. The enclosure has a main piece coupled to a lower piece and to a top piece, an optionally a fourth piece coupled to the top piece. A mounting subsystem is mounted to the main piece and includes a hole configured to receive therethrough a wires that connect to the printed circuit board. The antenna is configured to rotate about an axis that extends along a longest dimension of the enclosure. The module includes a metal plate to which the antenna is directly mechanically and electrically coupled without any cable such that the wires lack any control signals for controlling the antenna. The top and/or lower pieces can house any combination of a camera, an environmental sensor, security equipment, or a lighting system.
US08743012B2
A broad-band, multi-band antenna. The antenna includes a ground terminal and a feed terminal, an elongated inductor, a first inductive element electrically coupled between the ground terminal and a first extremity of the elongated inductor, a capacitive element in parallel connection with the first inductive element, and a second inductive element electrically coupled between a second extremity of the elongated inductor and the feed terminal.
US08743008B2
The invention relates to a base station antenna, that includes two or more reflector plates, each provided with a radiating element. The base station antenna also includes a reflector plate connecting member connected to each reflector plate for enabling the rotation of the reflector plates. The base station antenna also includes a reflector plate controller providing control signals for controlling the rotation and stoppage of the reflector plates.
US08743007B2
The present invention provides a substrate type antenna capable of realizing high gain enhancement and high band enhancement in a simple configuration. In the substrate type antenna, a loop-like first joint pattern whose one spot is divided, is formed in one substrate surface of a substrate made of a dielectric material. Antennas are respectively connected to both end terminals of the first joint pattern at a position where the first joint pattern is divided. A loop-like second joint pattern formed at a position corresponding to the first joint pattern and whose one spot is divided, is formed in the other substrate surface of the substrate. A loop-like third joint pattern which is substantially concentric with the first joint pattern and which is formed at a position corresponding to the second joint pattern and whose spot is divided, is formed in the one substrate surface of the substrate. Other antennas are respectively connected to both end terminals of the third joint pattern at a position where the third joint pattern is divided.
US08742998B2
An object is to provide a goods storage tool that enables an antenna to be connected to an electronics device without the need to take out the antenna from a storage object in which the antenna is stored. A goods storage tool of the present invention is a goods storage tool for storing goods or contents therein. The goods storage tool includes an antenna that is stored in the goods storage tool; and a connection portion that enables a feeder connector connected to an electronics device to be connected to the antenna in such a way that the antenna remains stored in the goods storage tool.
US08742996B2
Mobile wireless communications device with selective load switching for antennas and related methods
A mobile wireless communications device may include a plurality of antennas, a plurality of wireless transceivers, and signal processing circuitry. The device may further include a controller for selectively switching the signal processing circuitry to a desired one of the wireless transceivers, and for selectively switching a desired one of the antennas to the desired one of the wireless transceivers. Moreover, the controller may also be for selectively connecting and disconnecting the at least one other one of the antennas to an unused one of the wireless transceivers.
US08742992B2
In a planar inverted F antenna, a second radiation element is provided parallel to the GND surface and extending partially with respect to a first radiation element in a longitudinal direction, so as to substantially increase a width of the first radiation element in the vicinity of a power supply section.
US08742991B2
Handheld electronic devices and methods involving tunable dielectric materials are provided. In this regard, a representative device includes: a transceiver operative to selectively transmit and receive electrical signals; an antenna assembly electrically connected to the transceiver, the antenna assembly having anisotropic dielectric material operative to exhibit a change in dielectric constant responsive to an applied electrical signal; and a dielectric tuning system operative to automatically and selectively apply a first signal to the antenna assembly to change the dielectric constant of the anisotropic dielectric material to alter a resonant frequency and efficiency tuning of the antenna.
US08742974B1
A weather radar system for an aircraft is provided. The weather radar system includes processing electronics configured to process radar return data to identify a weather cell, to store information related to the identified weather cell in a database, to receive a selection of an identified weather cell from a user interface, to receive the information related to the selected weather cell from the database, and to cause the information to be displayed textually on a display in response to the received selection.
US08742970B2
An apparatus and method for regulating analogue-to-digital converters. First and second input signals are received at controlled oscillator circuitry which generates respective first and second pulse streams with pulse rates based on the relevant input signal. Difference circuitry determines the difference in number of pulses of the first and second pulse streams and outputs a first digital signal. Circuitry also determines a signal independent value based on the number of pulses of the first and/or second pulse streams. In one embodiment this value is the sum or average of the number of pulses of the first and second pulse streams. This value can be used to calibrate for any variation in transfer characteristic of the oscillator circuitry. In one embodiment this value is compared to a reference value and a regulation signal passed to control circuitry to regulate the operation of the oscillation circuitry.
US08742966B2
An output device receives a data signal, outputs an output signal corresponding to the data signal in synchronization with a clock signal, and includes a driving unit configured to drive an output buffer that outputs the output signal. The driving unit includes a signal switching unit and first and second driving circuits that operate with the same power supply. The signal switching unit inputs the clock signal into one of the first and second driving circuits in accordance with the level of the data signal, and the one of the first and second driving circuits outputs a driving signal whose level varies in accordance with a change in the level of the clock signal to the output buffer.
US08742961B2
A switching scheme is used during a calibration mode for determining calibration coefficients of each calibrated stage of a pipeline analog-to-digital converter (ADC). A calibrated stage of the pipeline ADC includes an amplifier for amplifying a residue voltage of the stage and a sampling capacitor comprising a plurality of sub-capacitors. The plurality of sub-capacitors have a first terminal connected to an input of amplifier and a second terminal connected to one or more switches that selectively couple the second terminal to the input terminal of the stage, a first reference voltage or a second reference voltage lower than the first reference voltage. During foreground calibration, a number of measurements are taken at an output of the amplifier to determine the calibration coefficient of the calibrated stage.
US08742951B1
A method for indicating readiness of a predictive windshear system on an aircraft is provided. The method includes determining whether a windshear system is in a ready state and providing a first output that causes an indication of the ready state, the ready state being responsive to the windshear system being ready to detect a windshear event. Determining whether the windshear system is in the ready state includes comparing a first time until a first parameter reaches a first value with a second time for initialization of the windshear system and determining that the windshear system is ready to detect the windshear event in response to the first time being greater than the second time.
US08742948B2
A server device may receive parking information that identifies a first plurality of parking spots, within a parking structure, that are available for parking, and a second plurality of parking spots, within the parking structure, that are unavailable for parking; store the parking information in association with information identifying the parking structure; receive, from a user device, a request for parking information associated with the parking structure; populate, in response to the request, a visual representation of the parking structure with the parking information, where the visual representation of the parking structure identifies the first plurality of parking spots and the second plurality of parking spots; and transmit the visual representation of the parking structure to the user device to assist a user, of the user device, in locating one of the first plurality of parking spots.
US08742941B2
A device (1) for providing information on positioning of at least one moveable coupling (26) of a marine loading system (2), the system comprising at least one fluid transfer line having a line end fixed to a base (21), and a moveable line end provided with a coupling (26) adapted for connection to a target duct, the coupling or a member immediately neighboring the coupling having at least one means for providing information on the positioning of the coupling (33) either adapted to cooperate directly with a means (34) for providing information on positioning of the base disposed on the base or on a member immediately neighboring the base to provide, on the basis of the information on positioning of the base, information on relative positioning of the coupling directly relative to the base, or adapted to provide information on absolute positioning of the coupling (26) in space, and, the base having a fixed position in space, the device has a calculating means making it possible to calculate on the basis of the information on absolute positioning of the coupling and data on positioning of the base fixed in space, information on relative positioning of the coupling directly relative to the base.
US08742940B2
An alarm circuit and method of monitoring a circuit protection device are disclosed. The alarm circuit includes a circuit protection device connected in series at an input voltage of a load. The alarm circuit also includes a programmable circuit connected in parallel to the circuit protection device and including an alarm signal. The programmable circuit is programmed to include a plurality of functional states, and at least one functional state corresponds to activation of the alarm signal. The at least one functional state activating the alarm signal corresponds with an interruption condition in the circuit protection device.
US08742927B2
The invention relates to the automatic detection of the presence of non-authorized persons in the vicinity of an apparatus of the aircraft type. To this end, the invention comprises equipping persons with radio transmitters for identifying them as authorized personnel. The aircraft are also fitted, such as at the existing PODs, with a transceiver device of a radio identification system of the RFID type for recognition of the persons wearing the radio transmitters. Only the persons who are not authorized in the vicinity of the aircraft initiate an alarm procedure.
US08742925B2
A device (1) for preventing and detecting the falling of an object or of a person on a line (2) of a railway station having a platform (3). The device (1) includes at least one detection device (7) having at least one emitter (8) of a beam (10) and a sensor (9) able to detect the beam (10), and a detection calculator (13) for processing the signals obtained from the sensors (9) and able to communicate safely with at least one signaling system (16a, 16b, 16c) of the railway station, barriers (4) able to be arranged on the platform (3) to prevent falls of the object or of the person, the barriers (4) delimiting between door opening areas (5), a detection device (7) being arranged in each of the door opening areas (5) to detect a fall on the line (2) of the railway station.
US08742924B2
A panic device operable in conjunction with a local device is configured to unlock a locking mechanism. The panic device can take the form of an electronic key fob, a key shaft, or a key holder. A first trigger on the panic device triggers a local alarm that is on-board or off-board the panic device. A second trigger on the panic device can activate an alarm circuitry that utilizes a local device to provide position information to a distant dispatch station. The local device uses a GPS-aware circuitry or other non-GPS means such as triangulation to determine the position information. The position information can then be sent to the distant dispatch station with or without the aid of the local device.
US08742923B2
A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a gateway comprising a controller to transmit a first RF signal to a remote control device, wherein the first radio-frequency signal is received by a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag associated with the remote control device, receive at each of a plurality of receivers operably coupled to the gateway a second RF signal from the RFID tag of the remote control device in response to the first RF signal, determine an approximate location of the remote control device based on at least a portion of the second RF signals received by the plurality of receivers, and transmit a signal to a set-top-box, wherein the signal comprises the approximate location of the remote control device, and wherein the set-top-box displays the approximate location of the remote control device. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US08742918B2
An exemplary alarm management system and method for the management of alarm messages of a technical installation or of a technical process are disclosed. A data processing system receives alarm messages. A plurality of display modules display the alarm messages. The data processing system includes a module for creating alarm channels for different ways of representing the pending alarm messages. Each alarm channel created by the module is associated with one of the display modules, and the display modules present the pending alarm messages as ate least one of lists, alarm clouds, and displays in conjunction with at least one of acoustic signals and alarm records.
US08742917B2
A warning triangle has a simplified structure and is operable in accordance with the requirement of energy saving and manufactured at lower cost. The warning triangle structure includes a first board body, a second board body and a third board body, which are assembled with each other. Each of the board bodies has a first face and a second face, which together define an internal cavity. At least one light source and a light guide strip for guiding light are disposed in the cavity. The second and third board bodies are pivotally connected with movable stands for supporting the warning triangle in use. The second and third board bodies can be selectively collapsed onto the first and second faces of the first board body to minimize the volume of the warning triangle.
US08742911B2
The invention relates to a method for monitoring the load of vehicle tires which are each contacting a pavement with a circumferential section during travel, by means of monitoring devices (4) which are mounted to the tire (1) and contain a transmitter and a generator which is driven by the flexion of the tire (1), said flexion occurring during vehicle operation, wherein the generator generates a first voltage pulse each time it reaches the beginning of the circumferential section of the tire (1), which is contacting the pavement, and generates a second voltage pulse each time it reaches the end of the circumferential section of the tire (1), which is contacting the pavement, the time intervals (t1) between first and second voltage pulses are measured, the time intervals (t1) or a value calculated therefrom are/is compared with a reference value, and a warning signal is generated if a difference detected in this comparison exceeds a predefined value.
US08742907B2
A display apparatus includes a display section which is attached to an electric vehicle EV operable upon supply of electric power thereto and displays information regarding the electric power supplied to the electric vehicle EV; a determination section which determines whether or not the electric power supplied to the electric vehicle EV contains green electric power; and a display control section. In the case where the determination section determines that the electric power supplied to the electric vehicle EV contains green electric power, the display control section controls the display section such that the display color becomes green. In the case where the determination section determines that the electric power supplied to the electric vehicle EV does not contain green electric power, the display control section controls the display section such that the display color becomes red.
US08742904B2
A control device of a machine tool includes a first determination unit determining an amount of rotation, rotational speed, and direction of rotation of a rotary handle based on a pulse signal generated by rotation of the rotary handle at a manual pulse generator, and a second determination unit determining which of position control and rotational speed control is selected by selection of an axis through an axis selector switch, based on a signal generated by an axis selection signal generator at an operation device including the manual pulse generator. When a determination is made that position control is selected, the control device controls the amount and direction of travel of a spindle based on the amount of rotation and direction of rotation of the rotary handle. When a determination is made that rotational speed control is selected, the control device controls the rotational speed and direction of rotation of a table based on the rotational speed and direction of rotation of the rotary handle. Accordingly, the user can readily set the direction of rotation and rotational speed of the table using the manual pulse generator, and cause the table to move at the set direction of rotation and rotational speed.
US08742875B2
A contactor has a frame including a base unit, a coil provided on the base unit and including input terminals, and a module including a circuit board for electrically controlling the coil, the circuit board including input terminals for power supply and output terminals for providing an electrical connection to the coil. The contactor further includes a fastening device arranged for mechanically and electrically connecting one of the output terminals to a corresponding input terminal of the coil, and the module is designed such that the fastening device connects the output terminal of the circuit board to the input terminal of the coil while at the same time the module is connected to the frame.
US08742861B2
It is possible to reduce the size of a surface acoustic wave resonator by enhancing the Q value. In a surface acoustic wave resonator in which an IDT having electrode fingers for exciting surface acoustic waves is formed on a crystal substrate, a line occupying ratio is defined as a value obtained by dividing the width of one electrode finger by the distance between the center lines of the gaps between one electrode finger and the electrode fingers adjacent to both sides thereof, and the IDT includes a region formed by gradually changing the line occupying ratio from the center to both edges so that the frequency gradually becomes lower from the center to both edges than the frequency at the center of the IDT.
US08742860B2
A MEMS resonator includes a beam oscillator that oscillates mechanically when an electrostatic force is applied. A supporter oscillates along with the oscillator and supports the oscillator; and at least one electrode includes an opposing face to the oscillator across a gap, wherein an electric current generated by the oscillation of the oscillator is output through an output terminal connected with the oscillator or electrode. The oscillator oscillates in a torsional resonance mode with a center being a longitudinal axis of the oscillator, and opposing faces of the oscillator and the electrode are made of semiconductors of which the conductive types are different from each other. Additionally, a surface part of the oscillator including the opposing face is doped with an impurity at a higher density than other part of the oscillator.
US08742846B1
The selectable gain differential amplifier includes a differential amplifier, a plurality of cascade leg pairs connected to the differential amplifier, each leg of each cascode pair including a cascode device and a load resistor configured to provide a selectable gain. A variable voltage generator is connected to each leg configured to set gain resistor voltage of any active cascode leg pair to a uniform predetermined common mode voltage and the output node voltage of any inactive cascode leg pair to a voltage different from the predetermined common mode voltage. A selector circuit is configured to select the output of any said cascode leg pair.
US08742837B2
A semiconductor device includes a high voltage generator for generating a high voltage by raising a power source voltage, a transfer circuit for transferring the high voltage to an internal circuit in response to a transfer signal, and a first discharge circuit for discharging the high voltage of an output node of the high voltage generator or the high voltage of an input node or output node of the transfer circuit when the power source voltage drops.
US08742827B2
A functional circuit is coupled to a power supply conductor by at least one power gating transistor. A switching device applies a gate drive voltage to a gate terminal of the power gating transistor via a resistive element. The power gating transistor provides a Miller capacitance between its drain and gate terminals. The Miller capacitance, the resistance of the resistive element, and the drive strength of the switching device are configured such that, in response to the switching device switching the gate drive voltage to allow more current to pass through the power gating transistor, the Miller capacitance provides a feedback mechanism competing against the switching device to reduce the slew rate of the gate drive voltage such that the current passing between the power gate supply conductor and the functional circuit through the power gating transistor is less than the saturation current of the power gating transistor.
US08742820B1
The present invention provides a power circuit, including a current-limiting chip, a current-limiting value setting circuit, and a baseband chip. A current setting port of the current-limiting chip is connected to a general-purpose input/output port of the baseband chip through the current-limiting value setting circuit. The general-purpose input/output port is configured to generate a first signal in a first time sequence period of timeslot transmitting of the baseband chip so that the current-limiting value setting circuit sets a current-limiting value of the current-limiting chip as a first current-limiting value. In the other time sequence periods of timeslot transmitting of the baseband chip, the general-purpose input/output port generates a second signal so that the current-limiting value setting circuit sets the current-limiting value of the current-limiting chip as a second current-limiting value. The first current-limiting value is greater than the second current-limiting value.
US08742818B2
An adaptive clock signal generator with noise immunity capability is disclosed, including a gain amplifier for processing an analog oscillation signal to generate an amplified signal; an adjustable Schmitt trigger, coupled with the gain amplifier, for generating a triggered signal according to the amplified signal; an output buffer, coupled with the adjustable Schmitt trigger, for generating a clock signal according to the triggered signal; and a noise detector coupled with the adjustable Schmitt trigger. The noise detector detects noise components of an input signal and enlarges the hysteresis window of the adjustable Schmitt trigger as the level of detected noise increases.
US08742810B2
One embodiment provides a phase-locked loop (PLL), in which a sequencer controls a loop filter such that, when a signal indicating turning-off of a power supply of the PLL is input thereto, or when a signal indicating turning-on of the power supply of the PLL is input thereto, a resistance value of a first resistance change device in the loop filter is a first resistance value, and that, after the PLL is stabilized, the resistance value of the first resistance change device is a second resistance value which is higher than the first resistance value.
US08742805B2
Disclosed herein are a power on reset device capable of performing a precise brown out detection (BOD) function and a power on reset method using the same. The power on reset device may include a delay signal generating unit, a reference voltage generating unit, and a reset signal generating comparing a delay signal with a reference voltage to generate a reset signal.
US08742793B2
A semiconductor integrated circuit includes: a main-interconnect to which supply voltage or reference voltage is applied; a plurality of sub-interconnects; a plurality of circuit cells configured to be connected to the plurality of sub-interconnects; a power supply switch cell configured to control, in accordance with an input control signal, connection and disconnection between the main-interconnect and the sub-interconnect to which a predetermined one of the circuit cells is connected, of the plurality of sub-interconnects; and an auxiliary interconnect configured to connect the plurality of sub-interconnects to each other.
US08742789B2
An interconnected array of reconfigurable logic cells which carry out at least one logic function, externally connected to peripheral connection network equipped with switch boxes and connected to programmable input/output blocks. The logic cells are distributed in a first dimension in rows i with i=1 to d and a second dimension in columns j with j=1 to w, with d≦2 and w=2 or d=2 and w≦2, each logic cell including a second input, a second input, a first output and a second output, the first input of each logic cell and the first output of each logic cell being connected to the connection network, the second input and the second output of each logic cell being connected to other different column and row logic cells except for the first and last rows or columns for d>2 or w>2 respectively.
US08742782B2
An on-chip technique for noncontact electrical testing of a test structure on a chip is provided. On-chip photodiodes receives pump light from a pump light source, where the on-chip photodiodes are electrically connected to the test structure and are configured to generate power for the test structure. An on-chip coupling unit receives probe light from a probe light source, where the on-chip coupling unit is optically connected to on-chip waveguides through which the probe light is transferred. On-chip switches open in response to receiving voltage output from the test structure, and the on-chip switches remain closed when the voltage output is not received from the test structure. The on-chip switches pass the probe light when opened by the voltage output from the test structure. The on-chip switches block the probe light by remaining closed, when the voltage output is not received from the test structure.
US08742781B2
A display device having repair and detect structure includes a substrate, a pixel array, a first shorting bar and a first repair line. The pixel array disposed on the substrate includes a plurality of data lines and a plurality of gate lines. The first shorting bar disposed on the substrate is connected to the gate lines for testing the gate lines, and the first shorting bar includes a first shorting segment. The first repair line is disposed on the substrate for repairing at least one of the data lines. The first shorting segment of the first shorting bar is electrically connected to the first repair line. Furthermore, another repair and detect structure of a display device is disclosed, wherein the first shorting bar includes a first shorting segment, the first repair line includes a first repair segment, and the first shorting segment overlaps with the first repair segment.
US08742776B2
The embodiments described above provide mechanisms for bump resistivity measurement. By using designated bumps on one or more corners of dies, the resistivity of bumps may be measured without damaging devices and without a customized probing card. In addition, bump resistivity may be collected across the entire wafer. The collected resistivity data may be used to monitor the stability and/or health of processes used to form bumps and their underlying layers.
US08742774B2
An apparatus for measuring a workpiece includes a capacitance probe mounted to a probe housing and a non-conductive spacer. The capacitance probe includes a probe tip with a sensor surface that emits an electric field. The non-conductive spacer extends between a probe contact surface and a workpiece contact surface. The probe contact surface covers the sensor surface, and the workpiece contact surface contacts the workpiece during the measuring of the radius.
US08742760B2
A transmit coil arrangement for a magnetic resonance device includes a plurality of individually actuatable conductor loops following one after another in a peripheral direction and a longitudinal direction on a cylinder surface. At least two groups, at a distance from one another in the peripheral direction, of at least two conductor loops following one after the other in the longitudinal direction are provided in the peripheral direction. To decouple the at least two groups, each of the at least two groups is bounded at least in the peripheral direction by at least one screen surface extending essentially in a radial direction and the longitudinal direction.
US08742757B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are described. In one example, the method includes applying a sample-selective magnetic field gradient sequence along a slice direction to partition responses from a sample under magnetic resonance imaging into a plurality of different regions of slices in the k space, applying spiral readout gradients to the sample to obtain echo data from the sample, and applying a Time Resolved Imaging of Contrast Kinetics imaging technique to sample the different regions of slices in the k space.
US08742756B2
An object is to enhance usability of parameter check when an imaging parameter is changed in multistation imaging, and easily obtain a desired image with high quality. In the multistation imaging, it is determined in a lump before imaging whether an image having desired quality is obtained by using the changed value of the imaging parameter, and the result is presented to an operator. The determination is executed in the order of “possible or impossible” determination of execution of imaging itself and “possible or impossible” determination of combination of obtained images. When it is determined that it is impossible to execute the imaging itself, the determination processing is finished. At this time, a recommended value may be presented.
US08742755B2
In one aspect, an apparatus for performing chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) magnetic resonance imaging on a region of an object being imaged is provided. The method comprises at least one coil capable of being operated to emit radio frequency (RF) signals, at least one detector capable of detecting nuclear magnetic resonance signals, and at least one controller to operate the at least one coil to provide at least one inversion sequence to the region to flip at least some spins in the region by a desired flip-angle, operate the at least one coil to provide at least one first pulse sequence at a first frequency offset from a peak resonant frequency of water by a first amount in a first direction to magnetize at least one exchange group in the region, operate the at least one coil to provide at least one second pulse sequence at a second frequency offset from the peak resonant frequency of water by the first amount in a second direction opposite the first direction, operate the at least one detector to measure a first signal emitted from the region as a result of providing the at least one first pulse sequence after a predetermined time interval after applying the first inversion sequence, and operate the at least one detector to measure a second signal emitted from the region as a result of providing the at least one second sequence at the predetermined time interval after applying the at least one inversion sequence, wherein the predetermined time interval is selected such that positive contrast is achieved with respect to the first signal relative to the second signal.
US08742750B2
A speed pick-up ring includes a main body having a plurality of targets and defining a plurality of notches. Each notch is disposed between adjacent targets. Each notch includes a base wall, a first sidewall and an oppositely disposed second sidewall. The base wall includes a convex portion. A fluid device includes a housing and a variable reluctance speed sensor engaged to the housing. The fluid device further includes a speed pick-up ring disposed within the housing. The speed pick-up ring includes a main body having a plurality of targets and defining a plurality of notches. Each notch is disposed between adjacent targets. Each notch includes a base wall, a first sidewall that is generally concave and an oppositely disposed second sidewall that is generally concave. The base wall includes a convex portion.
US08742741B2
In one general aspect, a power supply circuit can include a power stage configured to be coupled to a power source and configured to deliver an output voltage to a load circuit, and can include a comparator coupled to the power stage and configured to receive a reference voltage. The power supply circuit can also include a hysteresis control circuit configured to receive at least one of a feedback voltage or a reference voltage and configured to change a hysteresis of the comparator in response to the at least one of the feedback voltage or the reference voltage during a soft-start of the power supply circuit.
US08742727B2
Disclosed is an apparatus for estimating a voltage of a secondary battery which includes a cathode comprising a first cathode material and a second cathode material with different operating voltage ranges, an anode comprising an anode material and a separator for separating the cathode from the anode. The apparatus comprises a control unit configured to estimate a voltage of a secondary battery based on a circuit model including a first cathode material circuit, a second cathode material circuit and an anode material circuit, each circuit modeled to change its voltage according to State Of Charge (SOC) of the electrode material corresponding the circuit and a current flowing through the circuit.
US08742723B2
Provided is a battery pack producing method and a battery pack capable of suppressing defects such as overcharging or overdischarging in one or more of the used secondary batteries constituting a battery pack, and sufficiently exhibiting the performance of the used secondary batteries of the battery pack. This method includes an obtaining process for obtaining each full charge capacity of the used secondary batteries, a selecting process for selecting one or more used secondary batteries having similar full charge capacities from the used secondary batteries whose full charge capacities have been obtained, and an assembling process for assembling the selected secondary batteries.
US08742720B2
A lockable charging station for charging rechargeable electric devices comprising a base to encapsulate the electrical charging station and a plurality of locking cover members, wherein each locking cover member is removably mechanically engageable with the base via tab and slot engagement and is individually lockable to the base using a lock. Each locking cover member secures an individual electric device to the base so that the electric device is held in electrical engagement with the charging station until the individual user removes the locking cover. The lockable charging station may include a multi-unit charger with an encapsulating base and plurality of locking cover members or a base with mounting points for individual chargers and a plurality of locking covers.
US08742719B2
A power supply device supplies electric power to a power receiving device including a power receiving unit in a non-contact manner. The power supply device includes a power source device that generates electric power with a predetermined frequency; a power transmitting unit that receives the electric power from the power source device, and that resonates with the power receiving unit through an electromagnetic field, thereby transmitting the electric power to the power receiving unit in the non-contact manner; a detection device that detects reflected electric power to the power source device; a communication device that receives information regarding a power receiving situation in the power receiving device; and a control device that controls electric power transmission from the power transmitting unit based on the information regarding the power receiving situation and the reflected electric power.
US08742713B2
Motor control circuits and associated methods to control an electric motor provide a plurality of drive signal channels at the same phase, resulting in reduced jitter in the rotational speed of the electric motor.
US08742710B2
A rotary electric machine system includes: a stator that has multi-phase stator coils and that generates stator magnetomotive forces based on respective stator currents having different phases supplied to the multi-phase stator coils; a rotor on which rotor coils are wound such that magnetic poles are formed by rotor currents generated in response to the stator magnetomotive forces generated by the stator; a regulating unit that regulates a flow direction of each of the rotor currents to one direction to thereby regulate a polarity of each of the magnetic poles; and a control unit that controls currents supplied to the stator coils on the basis of a target torque. The control unit superimposes a pulse on the stator currents to adjust the ratio of each of the stator currents and each of the rotor currents so as to minimize a copper loss in the stator and the rotor.
US08742709B2
Provided is an integrated-inverter electric compressor with suppressed self-noise interference in an inverter unit, simplified electrical connections between an inverter circuit and a filter circuit, and fewer welded positions. A housing (2) has, on the periphery thereof, an inverter box (5) accommodating the inverter circuit (21) and a junction box (6) communicating with the inverter box (5) and accommodating a plurality of high-voltage components constituting a noise-suppression filter circuit (27). The plurality of high-voltage components accommodated in the junction box (6) are electrically connected via a busbar (33). The busbar (33) includes branched busbars (34) branched off near connections with a high-voltage component installed close to the inverter circuit (21), and the branched busbars (34) are connected to P-N terminals (25) of the inverter circuit (21) in a communicating section (12) between the junction box (6) and the inverter box (5).
US08742699B2
A charged particle beam generator, a charged particle irradiation system, a method for operating the charged particle beam generator and a method for operating the charged particle irradiation system, which allow a charged particle beam to be injected into a circular accelerator at an arbitrary timing and can reduce an irradiation time and a time for a therapy, are provided while maintaining the lower limit of an operation cycle of a linear accelerator. An accelerator control device controls an operation of a synchrotron on the basis of a beam extraction request signal transmitted from a beam utilization system control device. A control device generates a timing signal notifying the linear accelerator of an injection timing of a next operation cycle of the synchrotron after completion of an extraction process performed by the synchrotron, changes an operation timing of the linear accelerator so that the operation timing of the linear accelerator matches the injection timing.
US08742697B2
A light source apparatus includes a discharge lamp including a light-emitting container, and a pair of electrodes disposed such that a respective tip portion thereof opposes each other in the light-emitting container, and a driving unit that supplies a driving current to the pair of electrodes. The driving unit includes an AC supplier that supplies an alternating current of a frequency not lower than 1 kHz and not higher than 10 GHz to the pair of electrodes and a DC supplier that supplies a direct current to the pair of electrodes. The AC supplier is configured so as to alternately repeat an AC supply section in which the alternating current is supplied and an AC stop section in which the supply of the alternating current is stopped, and the DC supplier is configured so as to supply the direct current during a period corresponding to the AC stop section.
US08742695B2
A lighting system provides for independent control of both the brightness of an LED light fixture and the perceived color of the light emitted by the LED light fixture. The LED light fixture has two LED light sources, a control circuit alternately pulses the two LED light sources and changes relative duty cycles of the light sources to alter a perceived color output of the lighting fixture, in response to a change in a control signal from a controller. Duty cycles of the light sources are a function of the control signal and vary inversely. The LED light fixture also receives a control signal for controlling a current level provided to the LED light sources to independently control the brightness of the lighting system.
US08742691B2
A main transformer is arranged such that a load is connected to its secondary winding side. A first error amplifier generates a feedback signal that corresponds to the difference between a detection signal which indicates the electrical state of the load and a predetermined first reference voltage. A current generating resistor is arranged between a current generating transistor and a fixed voltage terminal. A second error amplifier is arranged such that the first input terminal receives the electric potential at a node that connects the current generating transistor and the current generating resistor, a predetermined second reference voltage is input to the second input terminal thereof, and the output terminal thereof is connected to the control terminal of the current generating transistor. An adjustment resistor is arranged between the output terminal of the first error amplifier and a node that connects the current generating transistor and the current generating resistor.
US08742686B2
The present application is generally directed to systems and methods for control and management of lighting components connected in a network. A user specified rule is executed to control lighting effects in a lighting network which comprises an interface module in communication with one or more lighting control modules. The interface module may receive a rule for controlling a lighting network. The rule may comprise a user identified input and a user specified lighting effect to occur responsive to the user identified input. The interface module detects receipt of the user identified input and executes the rule to trigger the user specified lighting effect via the one or more lighting control modules.
US08742683B2
The present invention provides an LED backlight driving circuit and an LED backlight driving method. The circuit includes an isolation MOS transistor, a dimming MOS transistor connected in parallel to the isolation MOS transistor, and first and second resistors. The first resistor and the second resistor are connected to each other in parallel and are connected between the dimming MOS transistor and a ground wire. The isolation MOS transistor and the dimming MOS transistor are arranged for electrical connection with an LED light. The LED backlight driving circuit arranges the isolation MOS transistor and the dimming MOS transistor to connect in parallel to each other so as to make the electrical current flowing through the isolation MOS transistor lessened to reduce the amount of heat emitting therefrom and enhance operation safety and also allow the MOS transistor used to be of a downgraded specification to lower down the manufacture cost.
US08742682B1
Disclosed are methods and lighting system with LEDs. An exemplified system comprises series-coupled light-emitting diodes, an integrated circuit, and an energy storage apparatus. The series-coupled light-emitting diodes are divided into several LED groups coupled in series. The integrated circuit comprises nodes respectively coupled to the LED groups, for providing a driving current to selectively flow through at least one of the LED groups. The energy storage apparatus has two ends coupled to a predetermined LED in a predetermined LED group. When the driving current flows through the predetermined LED group the energy storage apparatus energizes; and when the driving current does not flow through the predetermined LED group the energy storage apparatus de-energizes to illuminate the predetermined LED.
US08742671B2
A lighting apparatus includes a first substrate including a switching circuit, the switching circuit including a first port, a second port and a current control circuit configured to generate a current at the second port of the current control circuit responsive to a varying voltage at the first port. The apparatus further includes a second substrate mounted on the first substrate and including at least two LEDs electrically coupled to the second port of the current control circuit of the first substrate.
US08742667B2
A method and a system for increasing the lifespan of a plasma obtained in the atmosphere. The method includes the following steps: emitting a femtosecond laser pulse, referred to as a first pulse, generating a column of plasma by the filamentation phenomenon, and emitting a second YAG laser pulse, focused by way of an axicon on a line in the plasma column, the energy of the photons of the second laser pulse being greater than the attachment energy of the electrons in the plasma to neutral molecules such as oxygen molecules. The duration of the second pulse is greater than the duration of the first pulse, and the delay between the two pulses is greater than one microsecond.
US08742666B2
A filter for filtering radio frequency (RF) power transmitted from an electrostatic chuck (ESC) in a plasma processing system. The plasma processing system may include a heating element disposed at the ESC. The plasma processing system may further include a power supply. The filter may include a core member and a cable wound around and wound along the core member to form a set of inductors. The cable may include a plurality of wires, including a first wire and a second wire, a portion of the first wire and a portion of the second wire being twisted together, a first end of the first wire and a first end of the second wire being connected to the heating element, each of a second end of the first wire and a second end of the second wire being connected to a capacitor and being connected to the power supply.
US08742664B2
Disclosed are an apparatus and a method for controlling a room lamp of a vehicle. The present invention relates to collecting information associated with the vehicle and information associated with an ambient environment using a global positioning system (GPS) or a controller area network (CAN) and then controlling the room lamp using at least one of turn-off of the room lamp, change of an irradiation angle of the room lamp, and adjustment of illumination of the room lamp based on the collected information.
US08742657B2
Novel devices comprising a layer including compounds that are capable of triplet triplet annihilation up conversion (TTA-UC). In particular, the up-conversion layer absorbs light emitted by the OLED device and emits up-converted light with shorter wavelength in response. These devices may be used to provide improved lifetime for blue emitting devices.
US08742637B2
A waterproof and salt spray-resistant fan motor structure includes a base, a stator assembly, a case, and at least one circuit board. The base has a bearing cup vertically projected from one side thereof. The stator assembly is externally fitted around the bearing cup, and includes a plurality of silicon steel plates having windings mounted thereon. The case is arranged between the base and the stator assembly and internally defines a closed space, and the circuit board is located in the closed space. With these arrangements, the case protects the circuit board against corrosion by water and salt spray, enabling a fan to have largely extended service life.
US08742634B2
Disclosed herein is a linear vibration motor including: a stator part including a magnetic force part and a casing receiving the magnetic force part therein; and a vibrator part including a coil facing the magnetic force part to thereby generate electromagnetic force and a printed circuit board having one end coupled to the stator part and the other end coupled to the coil, wherein the vibrator part moves linearly along a longitudinal outer peripheral surface of the casing receiving the magnetic force part therein.
US08742629B2
A residential electric power storage system includes a lead-in wire, a distribution line, an electric power storage device, a voltage sensor sensing a voltage of the lead-in wire, a current sensor sensing a current charged to the electric power storage device through the distribution line and an electric power adjustment unit adjusting electric power charged to the electric power storage device through the distribution line; and a controller controlling the electric power adjustment unit. If the lead-in wire has voltage smaller than a threshold voltage, the controller controls the electric power adjustment unit to match the current that is charged to the electric power storage device to a command value to provide current control, whereas if the lead-in wire has voltage larger than the threshold voltage, the controller controls the electric power adjustment unit to match the voltage of the lead-in wire to a command value to provide voltage control.
US08742628B2
A solid state circuit breaker includes a first terminal; a second terminal; a first wide-band gap field effect transistor coupled to the first terminal; a second wide-band gap field effect transistor coupled to the second terminal, wherein the first wide-band gap field effect transistor and the second wide-band gap field effect transistor are common-source connected to one another; and a bi-directional snubber device coupled to the first wide-band gap field effect transistor and the second wide-band gap field effect transistor. Such a solid state circuit breaker may also include a gate drive circuit coupled to the first wide-band gap field effect transistor and the second wide-band gap field effect transistor, where the gate drive circuit may comprise a voltage regulation stage and a drive stage.
US08742624B1
A system may include a power module that includes a group of power supplies, particular ones of the group of power supplies being operable at a group of voltages ranging from a first voltage to a second voltage. The system may further include a controller coupled to the particular ones of the group of power supplies, the controller being to ramp up an output voltage, associated with the group of power supplies, from the first voltage to the second voltage in a group of discrete steps; where ramping up the output voltage by a particular one of the group of discrete steps is performed while a load is receiving power from the group of power supplies; and where ramping up the output voltage by a particular one of the group of discrete steps prevents over-current protection on the group of power supplies from being activated.
US08742620B1
An electrical cogeneration system and AC coupling method for efficiently distributing power from multiple AC sources. The system includes a main AC source, an AC generator, a solar panel, and an automatic transfer switch. The main AC source and the AC generator are connected to the transfer switch. The system also includes a DC/AC inverter, which is in communication with the solar panel. The transfer switch and the inverter are both connected to a common AC load panel where the power provided by the solar panel, the AC generator, and the main AC source is used to satisfy a common electrical load. The system further includes a system control device that is in communication with the inverter and the transfer switch and is capable of selectively determining power input to the AC load panel. An AC coupling method for distributing power from multiple AC sources is also provided.
US08742617B2
A battery apparatus includes a row battery group including a plurality of series-connected row batteries including one or more battery cells; a plurality of battery management sections, corresponding to the individual row batteries, for managing the battery statuses of the corresponding row batteries; a central management section for granting unique identification information to the individual battery management sections and acquiring information about the battery statuses of the row batteries from the respective battery management sections for management; second communication lines with which the plurality of battery management sections are daisy-chained; a first communication line with which, of the plurality of battery management sections, the battery management section located at one end is connected to the central management section; and a plurality of connection switching sections, provided in the individual second communication lines between the battery management sections, for switching the connection and disconnection between the battery management sections.
US08742608B2
The present invention includes a drive system for use in a flowing fluid, the drive system preferably having a first turbine connected to a shaft, a first gear connected to the shaft, a second turbine rotatably mounted on a pipe, a second gear rotatably mounted on the pipe and connected to the second turbine, and two or more satellite gears in fixed locations relative to the pipe and rotatably engaged, directly or indirectly, with the first gear and the second gear. The drive system may be used, for example, in a wind generator to generate electrical energy.
US08742605B1
A method of starting an aircraft engine is provided. The method includes providing motive power from a generator for starting an engine during an engine start mode and deriving electrical power by way of the generator from rotation of the engine during a generate mode, transmitting the motive power from the generator to the engine during the engine start mode by way of a constant speed drive (CSD) and regulating a frequency of the electrical power output from the generator during the generate mode by way of the CSD and coupling a generator and CSD controller (GCC) to the generator and the CSD and operating the generator and the CSD by the GCC to execute at least the engine start mode and the generate mode.
US08742598B2
One or more embodiments relate to a semiconductor structure, comprising: a conductive pad, the conductive pad including a plurality of laterally spaced apart gaps diposed at least partially through the conductive pad.
US08742597B2
This disclosure relates generally to package substrates with multiple embedded dice wherein each of the embedded dice can be connected directly to a bus of the package substrate without being routed through another die. The package substrate may be configured as a bumpless build up layer (BBUL) substrate.
US08742591B2
A semiconductor device has a plurality of conductive vias formed into a semiconductor wafer. A portion of the semiconductor wafer is removed so the conductive vias extend above a surface of the semiconductor wafer. A notch is formed in the semiconductor wafer around each of the conductive vias. The notch around the conductive vias can be formed by wet etching, dry etching, or LDA. A first insulating layer is formed over a surface of the semiconductor wafer and conductive vias and into the notch to provide stress relief between the conductive vias and semiconductor wafer. A portion of the first insulating layer is removed to expose the conductive vias. A first conductive layer and second insulating layer can be formed around the conductive vias. A second conductive layer can be formed over the conductive vias. The notch can extend into the second insulating layer.
US08742587B1
A metal interconnection structure includes a substrate and a protective layer. The substrate includes at least a first conductive layer. The protective layer is a single-layered structure disposed on the substrate, and a quantity of oxygen (O) in an upper part of the protective layer is more than a quantity of oxygen (O) in a lower part of the protective layer. A material of the upper part of the protective layer includes silicon oxycarbide (SiCO) or silicon oxycarbonitride (SiCNO), and a material of the lower part of the protective layer includes silicon carbide (SiC) or silicon carbonitride (SiCN).
US08742586B2
A stacked multilayer structure according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises: a stacked layer part including a plurality of conducting layers and a plurality of insulating layers, said plurality of insulating layers being stacked alternately with each layer of said plurality of conducting layers, one of said plurality of insulating layers being a topmost layer among said plurality of conducting layers and said plurality of insulating layers; and a plurality of contacts, each contact of said plurality of contacts being formed from said topmost layer and each contact of said plurality of contacts being in contact with a respective conducting layer of said plurality of conducting layers, a side surface of each of said plurality of contacts being insulated from said plurality of conducting layers via an insulating film.
US08742576B2
An MCM includes a two-dimensional array of facing chips, including island chips and bridge chips that communicate with each other using overlapping connectors. In order to maintain the relative vertical spacing of these connectors, compressible structures are in cavities in a substrate, which house the bridge chips, provide a compressive force on back surfaces of the bridge chips. These compressible structures include a compliant material with shape and volume compression. In this way, the MCM may ensure that facing surfaces of the island chips and the bridge chips, as well as connectors on these surfaces, are approximately coplanar without bending the bridge chips.
US08742572B2
Microelectronic devices and methods for manufacturing microelectronic devices are disclosed herein. An embodiment of one such method includes forming a plurality of through holes in a substrate with the through holes arranged in arrays, and attaching a plurality of singulated microelectronic dies to the substrate with an active side of the individual dies facing toward the substrate and with a plurality of terminals on the active side of the individual dies aligned with corresponding holes in the substrate. The singulated dies are attached to the substrate after forming the holes in the substrate.
US08742556B2
A semiconductor module comprises: a metal block; a semiconductor device installed via a solder layer in a semiconductor device installation area on a surface of the metal block; and a molded portion formed by molding a resin on the metal block and the semiconductor device; wherein the surface of the metal block includes a plating area and a roughened area, and the semiconductor device installation area is provided in the plating area.
US08742546B2
A semiconductor device includes a first pattern and a plurality of second patterns arranged at equal intervals. When the distance of the space between the first pattern and the second pattern closet to the first pattern is larger than a first distance, a plurality of dummy patterns are arranged in the space with shapes and intervals similar to those of the second patterns. When the distance of the space is equal to or less than the first distance and larger than a second distance, the dummy pattern is spaced from the second pattern closest to the first pattern, and extends toward the first pattern to be brought into contact with the first pattern. When the distance of the space is equal to or less than the second distance, the dummy pattern is spaced from the second pattern closest to the first pattern, and is connected to the first pattern.
US08742539B2
One aspect of the invention relates to a semiconductor component with a semiconductor body with a top side and with a bottom side. A first coil that is monolithically integrated with the semiconductor body is arranged distant from the bottom side and comprises N first windings, wherein N≧1. The first coil has a first coil axis that extends in a direction different from a surface normal of the bottom side.
US08742538B2
A silicon-germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) is disclosed, which includes: two isolation structures each being formed in a trench; a set of three or more pseudo buried layers formed under each trench with every adjacent two pseudo buried layers of the set being vertically contacted with each other; and a collector region. In this design, the lowermost pseudo buried layers of the two sets are laterally in contact with each other, and the collector region is surrounded by the two isolation structures and the two sets of pseudo buried layers. As the breakdown voltage of a SiGe HBT according to the present invention is determined by the distance between an uppermost pseudo buried layer and the edge of an active region, SiGe HBTs having different breakdown voltages can be achieved. A manufacturing method of the SiGe HBT is also disclosed.
US08742526B2
A photoelectric conversion device including a substrate, a photoelectric conversion element including a first electrode, a second electrode and an organic compound layer and a sealing member that are disposed in this order. When a cross section of the photoelectric conversion device in a thickness direction is observed with the sealing member being placed at an upper side, a bonding member seals the organic compound layer at an outside thereof. An output electrode on the sealing member has a protrusion. A side conductive portion is electrically connected with the protrusion in an up-and-down direction. A substrate conductive member electrically connected with the first electrode and the second electrode extends to an outside of the bonding member. An electrical connecting member electrically connects the side conductive portion to the substrate conductive member at a further outside of the bonding member.
US08742524B2
A semiconductor device, which is configured as a backside illuminated solid-state imaging device, includes a stacked semiconductor chip which is formed by bonding two or more semiconductor chip units to each other and in which, at least, a pixel array and a multi-layer wiring layer are formed in a first semiconductor chip unit and a logic circuit and a multi-layer wiring layer are formed in a second semiconductor chip unit; a semiconductor-removed region in which a semiconductor section of a part of the first semiconductor chip unit is completely removed; and a plurality of connection wirings which is formed in the semiconductor-removed region and connects the first and second semiconductor chip units to each other.
US08742523B2
A semiconductor device contains a photodiode which has a plurality of p-n junctions disposed in a stack. Two contact structures on the semiconductor device are connected across at least one of the junctions to allow electrical connection to an external detection circuit, so that signal current from incident light on the photodiode which generates electron-hole pairs across the connected junction may be sensed by the external detection circuit. At least one of the junctions is electrically shorted at the semiconductor device, so that signal current from the shorted junction may not be sensed by the external detection circuit.
US08742521B2
A semiconductor device in which MRAM is formed in a wiring layer A contained in a multilayered wiring layer, the MRAM having at least two first magnetization pinning layers in contact with a first wiring formed in a wiring layer and insulated from each other, a free magnetization layer overlapping the two first magnetization pinning layers in a plan view, and connected with the first magnetization pinning layers, a non-magnetic layer situated over the free magnetization layer, and a second magnetization pinning layer situated over the non-magnetic layer.
US08742520B2
A method and structure for a three-axis magnetic field sensing device is provided. The device includes a substrate, an IC layer, and preferably three magnetic field sensors coupled to the IC layer. A nickel-iron magnetic field concentrator is also provided.
US08742514B2
A storage node may include a lower electrode, a phase change layer on the lower electrode and an upper electrode on the phase change layer, and the lower electrode and the upper electrode may be composed of thermoelectric materials having a melting point higher than that of the phase change layer, and having different conductivity types. An upper surface of the lower electrode may have a recessed shape, and a lower electrode contact layer may be provided between the lower electrode and the phase change layer.
US08742510B2
Disclosed herein are various methods of forming replacement gate structures and conductive contacts on semiconductor devices and devices incorporating the same. One exemplary device includes a plurality of gate structures positioned above a semiconducting substrate, at least one sidewall spacer positioned proximate respective sidewalls of the gate structures, and a metal silicide region in a source/drain region of the semiconducting substrate, the metal silicide region extending laterally so as to contact the sidewall spacer positioned proximate each of the gate structures. Furthermore, the device also includes, among other things, a conductive contact positioned between the plurality of gate structures, the conductive contact having a lower portion that conductively contacts the metal silicide region and an upper portion positioned above the lower portion, wherein the lower portion is laterally wider than the upper portion and extends laterally so as to contact the sidewall spacers positioned proximate each of the gate structures.
US08742508B2
A three dimensional FET device structure which includes a plurality of three dimensional FET devices. Each of the three dimensional FET devices include an insulating base, a three dimensional fin oriented perpendicular to the insulating base, a gate dielectric wrapped around the three dimensional fin and a gate wrapped around the gate dielectric and extending perpendicularly to the three dimensional fin, the three dimensional fin having a device width being defined as the circumference of the three dimensional fin in contact with the gate dielectric. At least a first of the three dimensional FET devices has a first device width while at least a second of the three dimensional FET devices has a second device width. The first device width is different than the second device width. Also included is a method of making the three dimensional FET device structure.
US08742506B2
With a microwave FET, an incorporated Schottky junction capacitance or PN junction capacitance is small and such a junction is weak against static electricity. However, with a microwave device, the method of connecting a protecting diode cannot be used since this method increases the parasitic capacitance and causes degradation of the high-frequency characteristics. In order to solve the above problems, a protecting element, having a first n+-type region-insulating region-second n+-type region arrangement is connected in parallel between two terminals of a protected element having a PN junction, Schottky junction, or capacitor. Since discharge can be performed between the first and second n+ regions that are adjacent each other, electrostatic energy that would reach the operating region of an FET can be attenuated without increasing the parasitic capacitance.
US08742501B2
A power semiconductor device that realizes high-speed turnoff and soft switching at the same time has an n-type main semiconductor layer that includes lightly doped n-type semiconductor layers and extremely lightly doped n-type semiconductor layers arranged alternately and repeatedly between a p-type channel layer and an n+-type field stop layer, in a direction parallel to the first major surface of the n-type main semiconductor layer. A substrate used for manufacturing the semiconductor device is fabricated by forming trenches in an n-type main semiconductor layer 1 and performing ion implantation and subsequent heat treatment to form an n+-type field stop layer in the bottom of the trenches. The trenches are then filled with a semiconductor doped more lightly than the n-type main semiconductor layer for forming extremely lightly doped n-type semiconductor layers. The manufacturing method is applicable with variations to various power semiconductor devices such as IGBT's, MOSFET's and PIN diodes.
US08742500B2
A semiconductor device is disclosed wherein a peripheral region with a high breakdown voltage and high robustness against induced surface charge is manufactured using a process with high mass productivity. The device has n-type drift region and p-type partition region of layer-shape deposited in a vertical direction to one main surface of n-type semiconductor substrate with high impurity concentration form as drift layer, alternately adjacent parallel pn layers in a direction along one main surface. Active region through which current flows and peripheral region enclosing the active region include parallel pn layers. P-type partition region has impurity concentration distribution where concentration decreases from surface toward substrate side, n-type surface region disposed on parallel pn layers in peripheral region, p-type guard rings disposed separately from each other on n-type surface region, and field plate disposed on inner and outer circumferential sides of p-type guard rings, and electrically connected.
US08742490B2
The present technology is directed generally to a semiconductor device. In one embodiment, the semiconductor device includes a first vertical transistor and a second vertical transistor, and the first vertical transistor is stacked on top of the second vertical transistor. The first vertical transistor is mounted on a lead frame with the source electrode of the first vertical transistor coupled to the lead frame. The second vertical transistor is stacked on the first vertical transistor with the source electrode of the second vertical transistor coupled to the drain electrode of the first vertical transistor.
US08742489B2
According to one embodiment, a nonvolatile semiconductor memory including a first gate insulating film formed on a channel region of a semiconductor substrate, a first particle layer formed in the first gate insulating film, a charge storage part formed on the first gate insulating film, a second gate insulating film which is formed on the charge storage part, a second particle layer formed in the second gate insulating film, and a gate electrode formed on the second gate insulating film. The first particle layer includes first conductive particles that satisfy Coulomb blockade conditions. The second particle layer includes second conductive particles that satisfy Coulomb blockade conditions and differs from the first conductive particles in average particle diameter.
US08742478B2
A graphene transistor includes: a gate electrode on a substrate; a gate insulating layer on the gate electrode; a graphene channel on the gate insulating layer; a source electrode and a drain electrode on the graphene channel, the source and drain electrode being separate from each other; and a cover that covers upper surfaces of the source electrode and the drain electrode and forms an air gap above the graphene channel between the source electrode and the drain electrode.
